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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/32959-8.txt b/32959-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e25e29c --- /dev/null +++ b/32959-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6765 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Leerie, by Ruth Sawyer + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Leerie + +Author: Ruth Sawyer + +Illustrator: Clinton Balmer + +Release Date: June 24, 2010 [EBook #32959] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEERIE *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + + + + +Leerie + +Ruth Sawyer + + + + +[Illustration: Leerie] + + + + + LEERIE + + + BY + RUTH SAWYER + + AUTHOR OF + SEVEN MILES TO ARDEN, ETC. + + + ILLUSTRATED BY + CLINTON BALMER + + + "_And O! before you hurry by + With ladder and with light, + O Leerie, see a little child + And nod to him to-night!_" + + + GROSSET & DUNLAP + NEW YORK PUBLISHERS + + Made in the United States of America + + + + LEERIE + + Copyright 1920, by Harper & Brothers + Printed in the United States of America + + + + _To Lamplighters--the world over_ + + + + +CONTENTS + + + Chap. Page + + Foreword ix + + I. The Man Who Feared Sleep 3 + + II. Old King Cole 40 + + III. The Changeling 77 + + IV. For the Honor of the San 116 + + V. The Last of the Surgical 155 + + VI. Monsieur Satan 191 + + VII. The Lad Who Outsang the Stars 232 + + VIII. Into Her Own 269 + + Afterword 306 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + Leerie _Frontispiece_ + + Holding him high for Peter to admire _Facing p._ 100 + + "The first look I had told me she had gone quite mad" " 216 + + "He will require more care, better dressing" " 302 + + + + +Foreword + + +I like to write stories. Best of all I like to write stories about people +who help the world to go round with a little more cheer and good will than +is usual. You know--and I know--there are a few who put into life +something more than the bare ingredients. They add a plum here--extra +spice there. They bake it well--and then they trim it up like an +all-the-year-round birthday cake with white frosting, angelica, and red +cherries. Last of all they add the candles and light them so that it glows +warmly and invitingly for all; fine to see, sweet to taste. + +Of course, there are not so many people with the art or the will to do +this, and, having done it, they have not always the bigness of heart to +pass it round for the others to share. But I like to make it my business +to find as many as I can; and when I am lucky enough to find one I pop +him--or her--into a book, to have and to hold always as long as books last +and memory keeps green. + +Not long ago I was ill--ridiculously ill--and my doctor popped me into a +sanitarium. "Here's the place," I said, "where people are needed to make +the world go round cheerfully, if they are needed anywhere." And so I set +about to get well and find one. + +She came--before I had half finished. The first thing I noticed was the +inner light in her--a light as from many candles. It shone all over her +face and made the room brighter for a long time after she had left. The +next thing I noticed was the way everybody watched for her to come +round--everybody turning child again with nose pressed hard against the +window-pane. It made me remember Stevenson's _Lamplighter_; and for many +days there rang in my ears one of his bits of human understanding: + + And oh! before you hurry by with ladder and with light, + O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him to-night. + +Before I knew it I had all the makings of a story. I trailed it through +the mud of gossip and scandal; I followed it to the highroad of adventure +and on to the hills of inspiration and sacrifice. It was all there--ripe +for the plucking; and with the good assistance of Hennessy I plucked it. +Before the story was half written I was well--so much for the healing +grace of a story and the right person to put in it. + +This much I have told that you may know that _Leerie_ is as true as all +the best and finest things in the world are true. I am only the passer-on +of life as she has made it--spiced, trimmed, and lighted with many +candles. So if the taste pleases, help yourself bountifully; there is +enough for all. And if you must thank any one--thank _Leerie_. + +RUTH SAWYER. + +[Illustration] + + + + +LEERIE + + + + +Chapter I + +THE MAN WHO FEARED SLEEP + + +Peter Brooks felt himself for a man given up. He had felt his physical +unfitness for some time in the silent, condemning judgment masked under +the too sympathetic gaze of his fellow-men; he had felt it in the +over-solicitous inquiries after his health made by the staff; and there +was his chief, who had fallen into the comfortable week-end habit of +telling him he looked first-rate, and in the same breath begging him to +take the next week off. For months past he had been conscious of the +sidelong glances cast by his brother alumni at the College Club when he +appeared, and the way they had of dropping into a contradictory lot of +topics whenever he joined a group unexpectedly showed only too plainly +that he had been the real subject under discussion. Yes, he felt that the +world at large had turned its thumb down as far as he was concerned, but +it had caused him surprisingly little worry until that last visit to +Doctor Dempsy. + +There it was as if Peter's sensibilities concerning himself had suddenly +become acute. The doctor sounded too reassuring even for a combined friend +and physician; he protested too much that he had found nothing at all the +matter with him--nothing at all. When a doctor seems so superlatively +anxious to set a man right with himself, it is time to look out; therefore +the casual, just-happened-to-mention-it way that he finally broached the +question of a sanitarium came within an inch of knocking the last prop +from under Peter's resolve not to lose his grip. For the first time he +fully realized how it felt to be given up, and, characteristically, he +thanked the Almighty that there was no one to whom it would really matter. + +For a year he had been slowly going to pieces; for a year he had been +dropping in for Dempsy to patch him up. There had been a host of miserable +puny ailments which in themselves meant nothing, but combined and in a +young man meant a great deal. Of late his memory had failed him +outrageously; he had had frequent attacks of vertigo, and these of +themselves had rendered him unreliable and unfit for newspaper work. +Irresponsible! Unfit! Peter snorted the words out honestly to himself. +Under these conditions, and with no one to care, he could see no plausible +reason for trying to coax a mere existence out of life. + +To those who knew him best--to Doctor Dempsy most of all--his condition +seemed unexplainable. Here was a man who never drank, who never overfed, +who smoked in moderation, whose life stood out conspicuously decent and +clean against the possibilities of his environment. What lay back of this +going to pieces? Doctor Dempsy had tried for a year to find out and had +failed. To Peter, it was not unexplainable at all--he knew. Possessed of a +constitution above the average, he had forced it to do the work of a mind +far above the average, while he had denied it one of the three necessities +of life and sanity. His will and reason had been powerless to help +him--and now? + +Because he had hated himself for hiding this knowledge from the man who +had tried to do so much for him and wanted to make amends in some way--and +because it was the easiest thing, after all, to agree--he let Doctor +Dempsy pick out a sanitarium, make all arrangements, buy his ticket, and +see him off. He drew the line at being personally conducted, however. +Whether he went to a sanitarium or not did not matter; what mattered was +how long would he stay and where would he go afterward. Or would there be +an afterward? These were the questions that mulled through Peter's mind on +the train, and, coupled with the memory of the worried kindliness on +Doctor Dempsy's face, they were the only traveling companions Peter had. +It was not to be wondered, therefore, that as he left the car and boarded +the sanitarium omnibus he felt indescribably old, weary, and finished with +things. + +At first he thought he was the only passenger, but as the driver leisurely +gathered up his reins and gave a cluck to the horses a girl's voice rang +out from the station, "Flanders--Flanders! Why, I believe you're +forgetting me." And the next instant the girl herself appeared, suitcase +in hand. + +The driver grinned down a sheepish apology and Peter turned to hold the +door open. She stood framed in the doorway for a moment while she lifted +in her case, and for that moment Peter had conflicting impressions. He was +conscious of a modest, nun-like appearance of clothes; the traveling-suit +was gray, and the small gray hat had an encircling breast of white +feathers. The lips had a quiet, demure curve; but the chin was determined, +almost aggressive, while the gray eyes positively emitted sparks. The girl +was not beautiful, she was luminous--and all the gray clothing in the +world could not quench her. Peter found himself instantly wondering how +anything so vitally alive and fresh to look at could be headed for a +sanitarium with broken-down hulks like himself. + +She caught Peter's eye upon her and smiled. "If Flanders will hurry we'll +be there in time to see Hennessy feeding the swans," she announced. + +There was no response. Peter had suddenly lost the knack of it, along with +other things. He could only look bewildered and a trifle more tired. But +the girl must have understood it was only a temporary lack, for she did +not draw in like a snail and dismiss Peter from her conscious horizon. She +smiled again. + +"I see. Newcomer?" And, nodding an affirmative to herself, she went +sociably on: "Hennessy and the swans are symbolical. Couldn't tell you +why--not in a thousand years--but you'll feel it for yourself after you've +been here long enough. Hennessy hasn't changed in fifteen years--maybe +longer for those who can reckon longer. Same old blue jumper, same old +tawny corduroys; if he ever had a new pair he's kept them to himself. And +the swans have changed less than Hennessy. If anything gets on your nerves +here--treatment, doctors, nurses, anything--go and watch Hennessy. He's +the one sure, universal cure." + +The bus swung round the corner and brought the ivy-covered building into +sight. The girl's face grew lighter and lighter; in the shadow of the bus +it seemed to Peter actually to shine. "Dear old San," she said under her +breath. "Heigh-ho! it's good to get back!" + +Before Peter could fathom any reason for this unaccountable rejoicing, the +bus had stopped and the girl and suitcase had vanished. Wearily he came +back to his own reason for being there, and docilely he allowed the porter +to shoulder his luggage and conduct him within. + +Three days passed--three days in which Peter thought little and felt much. +He had been passed about among the staff of doctors very much like a +delectable dish, and sampled by all. Half a dozen had taken him in hand. +He had been apportioned a treatment, a diet, a bath hour, and a nurse. +Looking back on those three days--and looking forward to a continuous +protraction of the same--he could see less reason than ever for coaxing an +existence out of life. Life meant to him work--efficient, telling +work--and companionship--sharing with a congenial soul recreation, +opinions, and meals--and some day, love. Well--what of these was left him? +It was then that he remembered the gray girl's advice in the omnibus and +went out to find Hennessy and the swans. + +His nurse was at supper, so he was mercifully free; moreover it was the +emptiest time of day for out-of-doors. A few straggling patients were +knocking prescribed golf-balls about the links, and a scattering of nurses +were hurrying in with their wheel-chairs. Half-way between the links and +the last building was the pond, shaded by pines and flanked by a miniature +rustic rest-house, and thither Peter went. On a willow stump emerging from +the pond he found Hennessy, as wrinkled as a butternut, with a thatch of +gray hair, a mouth shirred into a small, open ellipse, and eyes full of +irrepressible twinkles. He was seated tailor fashion on the stump, a tin +platter of bread across his knees and the swans circling about him. He +looked every whit as Irish as his name, and he was scolding and blarneying +the birds by turn. + +"Go-wan, there, ye feathered heathen! Can't ye be lettin' them that has +good manners get a morsel once in a while? Faith, ye'll be havin' old Doc +Willum afther ye with his stomach cure if ye don't watch out." He looked +over his shoulder and caught Peter's gaze. "Sure, birds or humans, they +all have to be coaxed or scolded into keepin' healthy, I'm thinkin', and +Hennessy's head nurse to the swans," he ended, with a chuckle. + +But there was something quite different on Peter's mind. "Has one of the +patients--a young person in gray--been here lately? I mean have you seen +her about any time?" + +Hennessy shook a puzzled head. "A young gray patient, ye say? Sure there +might be a hundred--that's not over-distinguishin'. I leave it to ye, sir, +just a gray patient is not over-distinguishin'." + +Peter reflected. "It was a quiet, cloister kind of gray, but her eyes were +not--cloistered. They were the shiningest--" + +A chuckle from Hennessy brought him to an abrupt finish. "Eyes? Gray? +Patient? Ha, ha! Did ye hear that, Brian Boru?" and he flicked his cap at +a gray swan. "Sure, misther, that's no patient. 'Tis Leerie--herself." + +"Leerie?" The name sounded absurd to Peter, and slightly reminiscent of +something, he could not tell what. + +"Aye, Leerie. Real name, Sheila O'Leary--as good a name as Hennessy. But +they named her Leerie her probation year. In course she's Irish an' not +Scotch, an' I never heard tell of a lass afore that went 'round +a-lightin' street lamps, but for all that the name fits. Ye mind grown-ups +an' childher alike watch for her to come 'round." + +"A nurse," repeated Peter, dully. + +"Aye. An' she come back three days since, Heaven be praised! afther bein' +gone three years." + +"Three years," repeated Peter again. "Why was she gone three years?" + +Hennessy eyed him narrowly for a moment. "A lot of blitherin' fools sent +her away, that's what, an' she not much more than graduated. Suspension, +they called it." + +"Suspension for what?" + +The shirring in Hennessy's lips tightened, and he drew his breath in and +out in a sort of asthmatic whistle. This was the only sign of emotion ever +betrayed by Hennessy. When he spoke again he fairly whistled his words. +"If ye want to know what for--ye can ask some one else. Good night." And +with a bang to the platter Hennessy was away before Peter could stop him. + +Alone with the swans, Peter lingered a moment to consider. A nurse. The +gray person a nurse! And sent away for some--some--Peter's mind groped +inadequately for a reason. Pshaw! He could smile at the absurdity of his +interest. What did it matter--or she matter--or anything matter? For a man +who has been given up, who has been sent away to a sanitarium to finish +with life as speedily and decently as he can, to stand on one leg by a +pond, for all the world like a swan himself, and wonder about a girl he +had seen but once, in a sanitarium omnibus, was absurd. And the name +Leerie? Of course they had taken it from Stevenson, but it suited. Yes, +Hennessy was right, it certainly suited. + +A rustle of white skirts coming down the path attracted his attention. It +was his nurse, through supper, coming like a commandant to take him in +charge. Thirty-seven, in a sanitarium, with a nurse attendant! Peter +groaned inwardly. It was monstrous, a cowardly, blackguard attack of an +unthinking Creator on a human being--a decent human being--who might +be--who wanted to be--of some use in the world. For a breath he wanted to +roar forth blasphemy after blasphemy against the universe and its Maker, +but in the next breath he suddenly realized how little he cared. With a +smile almost tragically senile, he let the nurse lead him away. + +And all the while a girl was leaning over the sill of the little +rest-house, watching him. It was a girl with a demure mouth, a determined +chin, and eyes that shone, who answered impartially to the names of +Sheila, Miss O'Leary, or Leerie. The gray was changed for the white +uniform and cap of a graduate nurse, and the change was becoming. She had +recognized him at first with casual amusement as she watched him fill her +prescription of Hennessy and the swans, but after Hennessy had gone she +watched him with all the intuitive sympathy of her womanhood and the +understanding of her profession. Not one of the emotions that swept +Peter's face but registered full on the girl's sensibilities: the +illuminating interest in something, bewilderment, hopelessness, despair, +agony, and a final weary surrender to the inevitable--they were all there. +But it was the strange, haunting look in the deep-set eyes that made the +girl sit up, alert and curious. + +"'Phobia," she said, softly, under her breath. "Not over-fed liver or +alcoholic heart, but 'phobia, I'll wager, poor childman! Wonder how the +doctors have diagnosed him!" + +She learned how a few days later when Miss Maxwell, the superintendent of +nurses, stopped her in the second-floor corridor. "My dear, I should like +to change you from Madam Courot to another case for a few days. Miss +Jacobs is on now and--" + +"Coppy?" Sheila O'Leary broke in abruptly, a smile of amusement breaking +the demureness of her lips. "Needn't explain, Miss Max. I see. Young male +patient, unattached. Frequent pulse-takings and cerebral massage, with +late evening strolls in the pine woods. Business office takes notice and a +change of nurse recommended. Poor Coppy--ripping nurse! If only she +wouldn't grow flabby every time a pair of masculine eyes are focused her +way!" + +"But it wasn't the business office this time." Miss Maxwell herself smiled +as she made the statement. "It was the patient himself. He asked for a +change." + +"A man that's a man for all he's a patient. God bless his soul!" and a +look of sudden radiant delight swept the girl's face. "What's he here +for? Jilting chorus-girl--fatty degeneration of his check-book?" + +The superintendent shook her head. "He doesn't happen to be that kind. +He's a newspaper-man--a personal friend of Doctor Dempsy's. Overwork, he +thinks, and for a year he's been trying to put him back on his feet. It's +a case of nerves, with nothing discoverable back of it so far as he can +see, but he wants us to try. Doctor Nichols has analyzed him; teeth have +been X-rayed; eyes, nose, and throat gone over. There's nothing radically +wrong with stomach or kidneys; heart shows nervous affection, nothing +more. He ought to be fit physically and he isn't. Miss Jacobs reports a +maximum of an hour's sleep in twenty-four. Doctor Dempsy writes it's a +case for a nurse, not a doctor, and the most tactful, intuitive nurse we +have in the sanitarium. Please take it, Leerie." + +The girl stiffened under the two hands placed on her shoulders, while +something indescribably baffling and impenetrable took possession of her +whole being. Her voice became almost curt. "Sorry, can't. Bargain, you +know. Wouldn't have come back at all if you hadn't promised I should not +be asked to take those cases." + +"I'll not ask you to take another, but you know how I feel about any +patient Doctor Dempsy sends to us. Anything I can do means paying back a +little on the great debt I owe him, the debt of a wonderful training. +That's why I ask--this once." A look almost fanatical came into the face +of the superintendent. + +The girl smiled wistfully up at her. "Wish I could! Honest I do, Miss Max! +I'd fight for the life of any patient under the old San roof--man, woman, +or child; but I'll not baby-tend unhealthy-minded young men. You know as +well as I how it's always been: they lose their heads and I my +temper--results, the same. I end by telling them just what I think; they +pay their bills and leave the same day. The San loses a perfectly good +annual patient, and the business office feels sore at me. No, I'm no good +at frequent pulses and cerebral massage; leave that to Coppy." + +There was no stinging sarcasm in the girl's voice. She reached out an +impulsive hand and slipped it into one of the older woman's, leaving it +there long enough to give it a quick, firm grip. "Remember, it's only +three years--and it takes so little to set tongues wagging again. So let's +stick fast to the bargain, dear; only nervous old ladies or the bad +surgical cases." + +"Very well. Only--if you could change your mind, let me know. In the mean +time I'll put Miss Saunders on," and the superintendent turned away, +troubled and unsatisfied. + +An hour later Sheila O'Leary came upon Miss Saunders with her new patient, +and the patient was the man of the omnibus--the man with the haunting, +deep-set eyes. Unnoticed, she watched them sitting on a bench by the pond, +the nurse droning aloud from a book, the man sagging listlessly, plainly +hearing nothing and seeing nothing. The picture set Sheila O'Leary +shuddering. If it was a case of 'phobia, God help the poor man with +Saunders coupled to his nerves! Cumbersome, big-hearted, and hopelessly +dull, Saunders was incapable of nursing with tactful insight a +nerve-racked man. In the whole wide realm of disease there seemed nothing +more tragic to Sheila than a victim of 'phobia. It turned normal men and +women into pitiful children, afraid of the dark, groping out for the hand +to reassure them, to put heart and courage back in them again--the hand +that nine cases out of ten never reaches them in time. + +With an impulsive toss of her head, Sheila O'Leary swung about in her +tracks. She would break her own bargain for this once. She would go to +Miss Max and ask to be put on the case. Here was a soul sick unto death +with a fear of something, and Saunders was nursing it! What did it matter +if it was a man or a dog, as long as she could get into the dark after him +and show him the way out! Her resolve held to the point of branching +paths, and there she stopped to consider again. + +Peter's eyes were on the swans; there was nothing to the general droop of +the shoulders, the thrust-forward bend of the neck, the hollowing of the +smooth-shaven cheeks, and the graying of the hair above the temples to +write him other than an average overworked or habitually harassed business +man here for rest and treatment. If Sheila was mistaken--if there was no +abnormal mental condition back of it all, no legitimate reason for not +holding fast to the compact she had made three years before with herself +to leave men--young, old, or middle-aged--out of her profession, what a +fool she would feel! She balanced the paths and her judgment for a second, +then decided in favor of the bargain. So Peter was left to the +ministrations of Saunders. + +That night the unexpected happened, unexpected as far as the sanitarium, +the superintendent of nurses, and Sheila O'Leary were concerned. How +unexpected it was to Peter depends largely on whether it was the result of +a decision on his part to stop coaxing existence--or a desire to escape +permanently from Saunders--or merely an accident. However, Sheila O'Leary +was called in the middle of the night, when she was sleeping so soundly +that it took the combined efforts of the superintendent and the head night +nurse to shake her awake. As she hurried into her uniform they gave her +the bare details. Somehow the doors of the sun-parlor had not been +fastened as usual, and a patient had stayed up there after lights were +out. He had tried to find his way to the lift, had slipped the fastenings +of the door in his effort to locate the bell, and had fallen four stories, +to the top of the lift itself. The whole accident was unbelievable, +unprecedented. They might find some plausible explanation in the +morning--but in the mean time the patient was in the operating-room and +Sheila O'Leary was to report at once for night duty. + +As the girl pinned on her cap the superintendent whispered the last +instructions: "You'll find him in Number Three, Surgical. It's one of your +fighting cases, Leerie, and it's Doctor Dempsy's patient. Remember, your +best work this time, girl, for all our sakes!" + +And it was a fighting case. Innumerable nights followed, all alike. The +temperature rose and fell a little, only to rise again; the pulse +strengthened and weakened by turns; delirium continued unbroken. As night +after night wore on and no fresh sign of internal injury developed, the +girl found herself forgetting the immediate condition of the patient and +going back to the thing that had brought him here. If she was right and he +was possessed by a fixed idea, the dread of some concrete thing or +experience, his delirium showed no evidence. It seemed more the delirium +of exhaustion than fever, and there was no raving. Consciousness, however, +might reveal what delirium hid, so, as the nights slipped monotonously by, +the girl found herself waiting with a growing eagerness for the man to +come back to himself. + +The waiting seemed interminable, but a time came at last when Sheila +slipped through the door of No. 3 and found a pair of deep-set, haunting +eyes turned full upon her. + +"It's--it's Leerie." The words came with some difficulty, but there was an +untold relief in Peter's voice. + +For a moment the girl was taken aback, but only for a moment. She laughed +him a friendly little laugh while she put her hand down to the hand that +was still too weak to reach out in greeting. "Yes. Oh yes, it's Leerie. +Been getting pretty well acquainted with you these weeks, but rather a +surprise to find it so--so mutual." + +"I got acquainted with you--beforehand," announced Peter. + +"I see--omnibus, Hennessy, and the swans." She laughed again softly. +"You've been away a long time; hope you're glad to get back." + +Peter reflected. "I'm afraid I'm not. But I'll not say it if it sounds too +much like a quitter." + +"No, say it and get it out of your system. Getting well always seems a +terrible undertaking; and the stronger you've been the harder it seems." +Sheila turned to her chart and preparations for the night. + +Lights out, she sat down by the open window to wait for Peter to sleep. An +hour passed, two hours, and sleep did not come. She fed him hot milk and +he still lay open-eyed, almost rigid, staring straight at the ceiling. At +midnight she stole out for her own supper in the diet-kitchen and found +him still awake when she returned, the haunting eyes looking more child's +than man's in the dimness of the night lamp. Had she been free to follow +her most vagrant impulse, she would have climbed on the head of the bed, +taken the bandaged head on her lap, and plunged into the most enthralling +tale of boy adventure her imagination could compass. But she hounded off +the impulse, after the fashion of treating all vagrants, and went back to +the window to wait and wonder. Peter was still awake when the gray of the +morning crept down the corridors of the Surgical. + +Sheila questioned Tyler, the day nurse, as she came off duty the next +evening, "Number Three sleep any to boast of?" + +"Why, no! Didn't he sleep well last night?" + +She gave a non-committal shrug and passed into the room. He was watching +for her coming, and a ghost of a smile flickered at the corners of his +mouth. She couldn't remember having seen even so much of a smile before. + +"It's--it's Leerie." He said it just as he had the night before. But there +was a strange, wistful appeal in the voice which set Sheila wondering +afresh. + +"Gorgeous night, full of stars, and air like wine. Smell the verbena and +thyme from the San gardens?" Sheila threw back her head and sniffed the +air like a wild thing. "Took me a month to trail that smell--be sure of +it. You only get it at night after a light rain. Take some long breaths of +it and you'll be asleep before lights are out." + +But he was not. He lay rigid as the night before, his eyes staring +straight before him. Sheila remembered a description she had read once of +a mountain guide who had been caught on the edge of a landslide and hung +for hours over the abyss, clutching a half-felled tree and trying to keep +awake until help came. The man she was nursing might almost be living +through such an agony of mind and body, afraid to yield up his +consciousness lest he should go plunging off into some horrible abyss. +What did he fear? Was it sleep? Was somnophobia what lay behind the +wrecking of this fine, clean manhood? The thing seemed incredible, and +yet--and yet-- + +Before dawn crept again into the Surgical, the mind of Sheila O'Leary was +made up. Peter was suddenly aware that the nurse was close at his bedside, +chafing the clenched fingers free. It was that mysterious hour that hangs +between the going night and coming day, the most non-resisting time for +body and mind, when the human will gives up the struggle if it gives it up +at all. And Sheila O'Leary, being well aware of this, rubbed the tense +nerves into a comfortable state of relaxation and talked. + +First she talked of the city, and found he was not city-born. Then she +talked of the country--of South, East, and West--and located his +birthplace in a small New England village. She talked of the outdoor +freedom of a country boy, of the wholesome work and fun on a farm with a +large family and good old-fashioned parents, and she found that he had +been an only child, motherless, with a family consisting of a +misanthropic, grief-stricken father and a hired girl. His voice sounded +toneless and more tired than ever as he spoke of his childhood. + +"Lonely?" queried Sheila. + +"Perhaps." + +"Neglected and--frightened?" + +"What do you mean?" + +The girl leaned over the bed and looked straight into the eyes that seemed +to be daring her to find the way into his darkness and at the same time +barring fast the door against her coming. She smiled gently. "Tell me--can +you remember when you first began to fear sleep?" + +There was no denial, no protest. Peter sighed as a little worn-out boy +might have sighed with the irksome concealment of some forbidden act. "I +don't know," he said at last. "I can't think back to a time when I wasn't +afraid--afraid of the dropping out, into the dark. God!" He turned his +head away, and for the first time in two weary, wakeful nights Sheila saw +him close his eyes. + +Off duty, instead of going to breakfast and bed, Sheila O'Leary went to +the office of the superintendent of nurses. In her usual fashion she came +straight to her point. "Put Saunders back on Number Three and give me a +couple of days off. Please, Miss Max." + +Her abruptness shook the almost unshakable calm of Miss Maxwell. She gazed +at the girl in frank amazement. "May I ask why?" There was a kindly irony +in the question. + +"Sounds queer, I know, but I've simply got to go. Lots depends on it, and +no time now to explain. Want to catch that eight-thirty-five; Flanders is +holding the bus. Tell you when I get back--please, Miss Max?" And taking +consent for granted, Sheila started for the door. + +There was an odd look on the face of the superintendent as she watched +her go--a look of amused, loving pride. She might hide it from their +little world, but she could not deny it to herself, that of all the girls +she had helped to train, none had come so close to her heart as this girl +with her wonderful insight, her honesty, her plain speaking, and her heart +of gold. A hundred times she had defied the rules of the sanitarium, had +swept the superintendent's dignity to the four winds. And she would +continue to do so, and they would continue to overlook it. Such petty +offenses are forgiven the Leeries the world over. And now, watching the +gray, alive figure climbing into the omnibus, Miss Maxwell had no mind to +resent her breach of discipline. She knew the girl had asked nothing for +herself; she had gone to do something for somebody who needed it, and she +would report for duty again when that was accomplished. + +And two days later, accordingly, she came, a luminous, ecstatic figure +that flew into the office with arms outstretched to swing the +superintendent almost off her feet in joyful triumph. "It _was_ just what +I thought! Found the girl--only she is an old woman now--got the whole +miserable story from her, and--and--I think--I think--Good heart alive! I +think I can pull him out of the beastly old hole!" + +"Meaning--? Remember, my dear, I haven't the grain of an idea why you +went, or where you went, or what the miserable story is about. Please +shine your lantern this way and light up my intelligence." Miss Maxwell +was beaming. + +Sheila O'Leary laughed. "I began by jumping at conclusions--same as I +always do--jumped at 'phobia in Number Three. Almost came and asked to be +put on the case after you told me. But he isn't Number Three any +more--he's a little boy named Peter--a little boy, almost a baby, +frightened night after night for years and years into lying still in the +dark under the eaves in a little attic room, deliberately frightened by a +hired girl who wanted to be free to go off gadding with her young man. I +got the place and her name from Peter--coaxed it out of him--and I made +her tell me the story. The father paid her extra wages to stay at night so +the little boy wouldn't be lonely and miss his mother too much, and she +didn't want him to find out she had gone. So she'd put Peter to bed and +tell him that if he stirred or cried out the walls would close in on +him--or the floor would swallow him up--or the ghosts would come out of +the corners and eat him up or carry him off. Can't you see him there, a +little quivering heap of a boy, awake in the dark, afraid to move? Can't +you feel how he would lie and listen to all the sounds about him--the +squealing mice, the creaking rafters, the wind moaning in the eaves--too +terrified to go to sleep? And when he did sleep--worn out--can't you +imagine what his dreams would be like? Oh, women like that--women who +could frighten little sensitive children--ought to be burned as they +burned the witches!" The girl's eyes blazed and she shook a pair of +clenched fists into the air. "And can you see the rest of it? How the fear +grew and grew even as the memory of the tales faded, grew into a nameless, +unexplainable fear of sleep? And because he was a boy he hid it; and +because he was a man he fought it; but the thing nailed him at last. He +fought sleep until he lost the habit of sleep. He couldn't get along +without it, and here he is!" + +"Well, what are you going to do?" The superintendent eyed her narrowly; +her cheeks were as flushed as the girl's. + +A little enigmatical smile curved up the corners of the usually demure +mouth. "Going to play Leerie--going to play it harder than I ever did in +my life before." + +And that night as Peter turned his head wearily toward the door to greet +the kindly, cumbersome Saunders, he found, to his surprise, the owner of +the shining eyes come back. He felt so ridiculously glad about it that he +couldn't even trust himself to tell her so. Instead he repeated foolishly +the same old thing, "Why, it's--it's Leerie!" + +When everything was ready for the night, Sheila turned the night-light out +and lowered the curtain until it was quite dark. Then she drew her chair +close to the bed and slipped her hand into the lean, clenched one on the +coverlid. "Don't think of me as a girl--a nurse--a person--at all, +to-night," she said, softly. "I'm just a piece of Stevenson's poem come to +life--a lamplighter for a little boy going to sleep all alone in a +farm-house attic. It's very dark. You can hear the mice squeal and the +rafters creak, if you listen, and the window's so small the stars can't +creep in. In the daytime the attic doesn't seem far away or very strange, +but at night it's miles--miles away from the rest of the house, and it's +full of things that may happen. That's why I'm here with my lamp." + +Sheila stopped a moment. She could hear the man's breath coming quick, +with a catch in it--a child breathes that way when it is fighting down a +cry or a sob. Then she went on: "Of course it's a magical lamp I carry, +and with the first sputter and spark it lights up and turns the attic +inside out--and there we are, the little boy and I, hand in hand, running +straight for the brook back of the house. The lamp burns as bright as the +sun now, so it seems like day--a spring day. It isn't the mice squealing +at all that you hear, but the birds singing and the brook running. There +are cowslips down by the brook, and 'Jacks.' Here by the big stone is a +chance to build a bully good dam and sailboats made out of the shingles +blown off from the barn roof. Want to stop and build it now?" + +"All right." There was almost a suppressed laugh in the voice; it +certainly sounded glad. And the hand on the coverlid was as relaxed as +that of a child being led somewhere it wants to go. + +Sheila smiled happily in the dark: "You must get stones, then--lots and +lots of them--and we'll pile them together. There's one stone--and two +stones--and three stones. Another stone here--another here--another +here--a big one there where the current runs swiftest, and little stones +for the chinks." + +According to Sheila O'Leary's best reckoning the dam was only half built +when the little boy fell fast asleep over his work. And when the gray of +the morning stole down the corridors of the Surgical, No. 3 was sleeping, +with one arm thrown over his head as little boys sleep, and the other +holding fast to the nurse on night duty. + +But it takes a long while to break down an old habit and build up a new +one, as it takes a long while to build a dam. No less than tons of stones +must have gone to the building of Peter's before the time came when he +could drop asleep alone and unguided. In all that time neither he nor the +girl ever spoke of what lay between the putting out of the night lamp and +the waking fresh and rested to a welcomed day. + +With sleep came speedy recovery, and Peter was the most popular +convalescent in the Surgical. His laugh had suddenly grown contagious, his +humor irresistible, his outlook on life so optimistically bubbling that +less cheery patients turned their wheel-chairs to No. 3 for revitalizing. +The chief came up with Doctor Dempsy from town, and both went away wearing +the look of men who have seen miracles. Life in its fullness had come to +Peter, the life he had dreamed of, as a lost crosser of the desert dreams +of water. Efficient work was to be his again, and companionship, and--yes, +for the first time he hoped for the third and best of life's +ingredients--he hoped for love. + +And then, just as everything looked best and brightest, he was told that +he no longer needed a night nurse. Sheila O'Leary was put on the case of +an old lady with chronic dyspepsia. She told him herself, as she went off +duty in the Surgical for the last time. + +"You've had the best sleep of all." She smiled at his efforts to pull +himself awake. "I'll drop in when I'm passing, to see how you're getting +on, but otherwise this is good-by and good luck." She held out her hand. + +"Why--but--Hang it all! I can't get along without a night nurse. And if I +don't need one, why can't you take Miss Tyler's place in the day?" + +"Orders." Sheila announced it as an unshakable fact. + +"I'll see Miss Maxwell." + +"No use. She wouldn't listen." + +"Guess if I'm paying for it I can have--" + +Sheila O'Leary's chin squared and her body stiffened. "There are some +things no one can pay for, Mr. Brooks." + +Peter colored crimson. He reached quickly for the hand Sheila had pulled +away. "What an ungrateful cur you must think I am! And I've never said a +word--never thanked you." + +"There was nothing to thank for. I was only undoing what another woman had +done long ago. That's one of the glad things about nursing; we so often +have a chance at just that sort of thing--the chance to make up for some +of the blind mistakes in life. Good-by. I'm late now." + +"But--but--" Peter held frantically to the hand. "'Pon my soul, I can't +let you go until--until--" He broke off, crimsoning again. "Promise a +time when you will come back--just a minute I can count on and look +forward to. Please!" + +"All right--I'll be back at four--just for a minute." + +It happened, however, that Miss Jacobs--pink-cheeked, auburn-haired, +green-eyed little Miss Jacobs, the first nurse on Peter's case, blew into +No. 3 a few minutes before four. She had developed the habit of blowing in +at least once in the day and telling Peter how perfectly splendid it was +to see him getting along so well. But as he did not happen to look quite +so well this time, she condoled and wormed the reason out of Peter. + +"Leerie off duty! Don't you think it's rather remarkable they let her stay +so long? Of course the management, as a rule, doesn't let her have cases +of--of this kind. A girl who's been sent away on account +of--of--questionable conduct isn't exactly safe to trust. Don't you think +so? And the San can't afford to risk its reputation." For an instant the +green eyes shimmered and glistened balefully, while she tossed her auburn +curls coyly at Peter. "It's really too bad, for she's a wonderful surgical +nurse. All the best surgeons want her on their cases. That's why they put +her on with you; that's really why they let her come back at all." + +A look in Peter's eyes stopped her and made her look back over her +shoulder. Sheila O'Leary stood in the open doorway. For an instant the +perpetual assurance of Miss Jacobs was shaken, but only for an instant. +She smiled tolerantly. "Hello, Leerie! I've been telling Mr. Brooks what a +wonderful surgical nurse you are." + +The gray eyes of the girl in the doorway looked steadily into the green +eyes of the girl by the bed. "Thank you, Coppy, I heard you." And she +stepped aside to let the other pass out. + +"Well?" she asked when the two were alone. + +"Well!" answered Peter, emphatically. "Everything is very, very well. Do +you know," and he smiled up at her like a happy small boy--"do you know +that all the while you were building that dam I was building something +else?" + +"Were you?" + +"I was building my life over again--building it fresh, with the fear gone +and everything sound and strong and fine. And into the chinks where all +the miserable empty places had been--the places where loneliness and +heartache eternally leaked through--I was fitting love, the love I never +dared dream of." + +"Yes?" + +The girl's lips looked strangely hard--almost bitter, Peter thought; and +this time he reached out both arms to her. + +"Hang it all! It's tough on a man who's never dared dream of love to have +it take him, bandaged and tied to his bed. Leerie--Leerie! You wouldn't +have the heart to blow out the lamp now, would you?" + +The lips softened, she gave a sad little shake of her head. "No, but +you've got to keep it burning yourself. You're a man; you can do it. +Sorry--can't help it. And please don't say anything more. Don't spoil it +all, and make me say things I wish I hadn't and send you off to pay your +bill and leave the San to-night." She smiled wistfully. "Dear, grown-up +boy! Don't you know that it's the customary thing for a man to think he's +fallen in love with his nurse when he's convalescing? Just get well and +forget it--as all the others do." She turned toward the door. + +"I'm not going to pay my bill to-night, and I'm not going to forget it. I +guess all those chinks haven't been filled up yet. I'm going to stay until +they are. Good plan, don't you think?" And Peter Brooks smiled like a man +who had never been given up--nor ever intended giving up, now that life +had given him back the things for which he had a right to fight. + + + + +Chapter II + +OLD KING COLE + + +Hennessy was feeding the swans. Sheila O'Leary leaned over the sill of the +diminutive rustic rest-house and watched him with a tired contentment. She +had just come off a neurasthenic case--a week of twenty-four-hour +duty--and she wanted to stretch her cramped sensibilities in the quiet +peace of the little house and invite her soul with a glimpse of Hennessy +and the swans. + +All about her the grounds of the sanitarium were astir with its customary +crowd of early-summer-afternoon patients. How those first warm days called +the sick folks out-of-doors and held them there until the last beam of +sunshine had disappeared behind the foremost hill! The tennis-courts were +full; the golf-links were dotted about with spots of color like a cubist +picture; pairs of probationers, arm in arm, were strolling about, enjoying +a comparative leisure; old Madam Courot was at her customary place under +the juniper, watching the sun go down. Three years! Nothing seemed changed +in all that time but the patients--and not all of these, as Madame Courot +silently testified. The pines shook themselves above the rest-house in the +same lazy, vagabond fashion, the sun purpled the far hills and spun the +same yellow haze over the links, the wind brought its habitual afternoon +accompaniment of cow-bells from the sanitarium farm, and Hennessy threw +the last crumb of bread to Brian Boru, the gray swan, as he had done for +the fifteen years Sheila could remember. + +She folded her arms across the sill and rested her chin on them. How good +it was to be back at the old San, to settle down to its kindly, +comfortable ways and the peace of its setting after the feverish +restlessness of city hospitals! She remembered what Kipling had said, that +the hill people who came down to the plains were always hungering to get +back to the hills again. That was the way she had felt about it--always a +hunger to come back. For months and months she had thought that she might +forever have to stay in those hospitals, have to make up her mind to the +eternal plains--and then had come her reprieve--she had been called back +to the San and the work she loved best. + +Had the place been any other than the sanitarium, and the person any other +than Sheila O'Leary, this would never have happened. For she had left +under a cloud, and in similar cases a cloud, once gathered, grows until it +envelops, suffocates, and finally annihilates the person. As a graduate +nurse she would have ceased to exist. But in spite of the most blighting +circumstances, those who counted most believed in her and trusted her. +They had only waited for time to forget and tongues to stop wagging, and +then they had called her back. Perhaps the strangest thing about it was +that Sheila did not look like a person who could have had even the +smallest, fleeciest of clouds brushing her most distant horizon. In fact, +so vital, warm, and glowing was her personality, so radiant her nature, +that she seemed instead a permanent dispeller of clouds. + +From across the pond Hennessy watched her with adoring eyes as he gave his +habitual, final bang to the bread-platter and the hitch to his corduroys +preparatory to leaving. To his way of thinking, there was no nurse +enrolled on the books of the old San who could compare with her. In the +beginning he had prophesied great things of her to Flanders, the +bus-driver. "Ye mind what I'm tellin' ye," he had said. "Afore she's +finished her trainin' she'll have more lads a-dandtherin' round her than +if she'd been the King of Ireland's only daughter. Ye can take my word for +it, when she leaves here, 'twill be a grand home of her own she'll be +goin' to an' no dirty hospital." + +That had been three years ago, and Hennessy sighed now over the utter +futility of his words. "Sure, who could have been seein' that one o' the +lads would have turned blackguard? Hennessy knows. Just give the lass time +for that hurt to heal, an' she'll be winnin' a home of her own, after +all." This he muttered to himself as he took the path leading toward the +rest-house. + +Sheila saw him coming, his lips shirred to the closeness of some emotional +strain. "Hello, Hennessy! What's troubling?" she called down the path. + +"Faith, it's Mr. Peter Brooks that's troublin'. 'Tis a week, now, that +ye've been off that case--an' he's near cured. Another week now--" + +"In another week he'll be going back to his work--and I'll be very glad." + +Hennessy eyed the girl narrowly. "Will ye, then? Why did ye cure him up so +fast for, Miss Leerie? Why didn't ye give the poor man a chance?" + +No one but Hennessy would have had sufficient temerity for such a +question, but had any one dared to ask it, upon their heads would have +fallen the combined anger and bitterness of Sheila's tongue. For having +had occasion once for bitterness, it was not over-hard to waken it when +men served as topics. But at Hennessy she smiled tolerantly. "Didn't I +give him a chance to get well? That was all he needed or wanted. And, now +he's well, he'll go about his business." + +"Faith," and Hennessy closed a suggestive eye, "that depends on what he +takes to be his business. In my young days the choosin' an' courtin' of a +wife was the big part of a man's business. Now if he comes round askin' my +opinion--" + +"Tell him, Hennessy"--and Sheila fixed him firmly with a glance--"that +the sanitarium does not encourage its cured patients to hang about +bothering its nurses. It is apt to make trouble for the nurses. +Understand?" + +Again Hennessy closed one eye; then he laughed. "When ye talk of devils +ye're sure to smell brimstone. There comes Mr. Brooks now, an' he has his +head back like a dog trailin' the wind." + +The girl turned and followed Hennessy's jerking thumb with her eyes. +Across the pine grove, coming toward them, was a young man above medium +height, square-shouldered and erect. There was nothing startlingly +handsome nor remarkable about his appearance; he was just nice, strong, +clean-looking. He waved to the two by the rest-house. + +"And do ye mind his looks when he came!" Hennessy's tone denoted wonder +and admiration. + +"A human wreck--haunted at that." There was a good deal more than mere +professional interest in Sheila's tone; there was pride and something +else. It was past Hennessy's perceptive powers to define what, but he +noticed it, nevertheless, and looked sharply up at the girl. + +"For the love o' Mike, Miss Leerie! Why can't ye stop ticketin' each man +as a case an' begin thinkin' about them human-like? Ye might begin +practisin' wi' Mr. Brooks." + +The line of Sheila's lips became fixed; the chin that could look so +demure, the eyes that could look so soft and gentle, both backed up the +lips in an expression of inscrutable hardness. + +"In the name of your patron saint, Hennessy, what have you said to Miss +Leerie to turn her into that sphinx again?" The voice of Peter Brooks was +as nice as his appearance. + +Hennessy looked foolish. "I was tellin' her, then," he moistened his lips +to allow a safer emigration of words--"I was tellin' her--that the gray +swan had the rheumatism in his left leg, an' I was askin' her, did she +think Doctor Willum would prescribe a thermo bath for him. I'd best be +askin' him meself, maybe," and with a sudden pull at his forelock Hennessy +backed away down the path. + +Peter Brooks watched him depart with an admiration equal to that with +which Hennessy had welcomed him. "That man has a wonderful insight into +human nature. Now I was just wishing I could have you all alone for +about--" + +Sheila interrupted him. "I hope you weren't counting on too many minutes. +I can see Miss Maxwell coming down the San steps, and I have a substantial +feeling that she's looking for me to put me on another case." + +"Couldn't we escape? Couldn't we skip round by the farm to the garage and +get my car? You look fagged out. A couple of hours' ride would do wonders +for you, and--Good Lord! The San can run that long without your services. +What do you say? Shall we beat it?" + +With a telltale, pent-up eagerness he noticed the girl's indecision and +flung himself with all his persuasive powers to turn the balance in his +favor. "Do come. You can work better and harder for a little time off now +and then. All the other nurses take it. Why under the heavens can't a man +ever persuade you to have a little pleasure?" Something in Sheila's face +stopped him and prompted the one argument that could have persuaded her. +"If you'll only come, Leerie, I'll promise to keep dumb--absolutely dumb. +I'll promise not to spoil the ride for you." + +Sheila flung him a radiant smile; it almost unbalanced him and murdered +his resolve. "Then I'll come. You're the first man I ever knew who could +keep his word--that way. Hurry! we'll have to run for it." And taking the +lead, she ducked through the little door of the rest-house and ran, +straight as the crow flies, to the hiding shelter of the farm. + +But her premonition was correct. When she returned two hours later in the +cool of a summer's twilight, with eyes that sparkled like iridescent pools +and lips that smiled generously her gratitude to the man who could keep +his word, she found the superintendent of nurses watching from the San +steps for their car. + +"All right, Miss Maxwell," she nodded in response to the question that was +plainly stamped on the superintendent's face. "We've had supper--don't +even have to change my uniform." Then to Peter, "Thank you." + +The words were meager enough, but Peter Brooks had already received his +compensation in the girl's glowing face. "It's 'off again, on again, gone +again,' in your profession, too. Well, here's looking forward to the next +escape." His laugh rang with health and good spirits. + +Sheila stopped on her way up the steps, turned and looked back at him. The +wonder of his recovery often surprised even herself. It seemed incredible +that this pulsing, vitalized portion of humanity could have once been a +veritable husk, hounded by a haunting fear into a state of hopelessness +and loathing of existence. Life certainly tingled in Peter now, and every +time Sheila felt it, man or no man, she could not help rejoice with all +her heart at the thing she had helped to do. + +Peter's smile met hers half-way in the dusk. "It may be another week +before I see you again. In case--I'd like to tell you that I'm staying on +indefinitely. The chief has pushed me out of my Sunday section and has +sent me a lot of special articles to do up here. He thinks I had better +not come back until I'm all fit." + +"You're perfectly fit now." There was a brutal frankness in the girl's +words. + +Peter had grown used to these moments. They no longer troubled or hurt +him. He had begun to understand. "Maybe I am; I feel so, but you can never +tell. Then there's always the danger of one's heart going back on one. +That's why I've decided to stay on and coddle mine. Rather good plan?" + +Sheila O'Leary vouchsafed no answer. She disappeared through the entrance +of the sanitarium, leaving Peter Brooks still smiling. Neither his +expression nor position had changed a few seconds later when Miss Jacobs +touched him on the arm. + +"Oh, Mr. Brooks! Were you the guilty party--running away with Leerie? For +the last two hours we've been combing the San grounds for her." The green +eyes of the flirtatious nurse gleamed peculiarly catlike in the dusk. "Of +course I don't suppose my opinion counts so very much with you," there was +a honeyed, self-deprecatory quality in the girl's tone, "but if I were +you, I wouldn't go about so awfully much with Leerie. She's a dear girl--I +don't suppose it's really her fault--but she had such a record. And you +know it's my creed that girls of that kind can compromise poor men far +oftener than men compromise girls. Oh, I do hope you understand what I +mean!" + +Peter still wore a smile, but it was a different smile. It was as much +like the old one as a search-light is like sunshine. He focused it full on +Miss Jacobs's face. "I'm a shark at understanding. And don't worry about +me. I'm more of a shark in deep water with--with sirens." He chuckled +inwardly at the look of blank incomprehension on the nurse's face. "By the +way, just what did you want Miss Leary for? Not another accident?" + +The girl gave her head a disgusted toss. "Oh, they want her to help an old +man die. He came up here a week ago. I saw him then, and he looked ready +to burst. Doctor MacByrn said he weighed over three hundred and had a +blood pressure of two hundred and ten. They can't bring it down, and his +heart is about done for. Leerie always gets those dying cases. Ugh!" The +girl shuddered. "Guess they wouldn't put me on any of those sure-dead +cases; it's bad enough when you happen on them." + +Peter shot her a pitying glance and walked back to his car. He was just +climbing in when the girl's voice chirped back to him. "Just the night +for a ride, isn't it? I couldn't think of letting you go all alone and be +lonesome. Isn't it lucky I'm off duty till ten!" + +"Lucky for the patient!" Peter mumbled under his breath; then aloud: +"Sorry, but I'm unlucky. Only enough gasoline to get her back to the +garage. Good night." He swung the car free of the curb, leaving little +red-headed, green-eyed Miss Jacobs in the process of gathering up her +skirts and mounting into thin air. + +Meanwhile Sheila had followed the superintendent to her office. "It's a +case of cerebral hemorrhages. The man is no fool; he knows his condition, +and he's been getting increasingly hard to take care of every minute since +he found out. Maybe you've heard of him. He's Brandle, the coal magnate. +Quite alone in the world; no children, and his wife died some few years +ago. He's very peculiar, and no one seems to know what to say to him or do +for him. I'm a little afraid--" and the superintendent paused to consider +her words before committing herself. "I think perhaps there have been too +many offers of prayers and scriptural readings for his taste." + +"Probably he'd prefer the last _Town Topics_ or the latest detective +story." Sheila shook her head violently. "Why can't a man be allowed to +die the way he chooses--instead of your way, or my way, or the Reverend +Mr. Grumble's way?" + +"Miss Barry is on the case now, and I'm afraid he's shocked her into--" + +"Perpetual devotion." Sheila grinned sympathetically as she completed the +sentence. They had called her Prayer-Book Barry her probation year because +of her unswerving religious point of view, and her years of training had +only served to increase it. The picture of anything as sensitively pious +as Prayer-Book Barry helping a coal magnate to depart this temporal world +in his own chosen fashion was too much for Sheila's sense of the +grotesque. She threw back her head and laughed. Peal after peal rang out +and over the transom of the superintendent's office just as Miss Jacobs +passed. + +It took no great powers of penetration to identify the laugh; a look of +satisfaction crept into the green eyes. "Quite dramatic and brutally +unfeeling I call it," she murmured. "But it will make an entertaining +story to tell Mr. Brooks. He thinks Leerie is such a little tinseled +saint." + +Ten minutes later Sheila O'Leary followed Miss Maxwell into the large +tower room of the sanitarium to relieve Miss Barry from duty. As she took +her first look from the doorway she almost forgot herself and laughed +again. The room might have been a scene set for a farce or a comic opera. + +Propped up in bed, with multitudinous pillows about him, was a very +mammoth of a man in heliotrope-silk pajamas. His face was as round and +full and bucolic as a poster advertising some specific brew of beer. +Surmounting the face was a sparse fringe of white hair standing erect, +while an isolated lock mounted guard over a receding forehead. It was +evident that the natural expression of the face was good-natured, +indulgent, easygoing, but at the moment of Sheila's entrance it was +contorted into something that might have served for a cartoon of a +choleric full moon. The eyes were rolling frantically in every direction +but that from which the presumable infliction came, for seated at the +bedside, with a booklet of evening prayer open on her lap, was Miss Barry, +reading aloud in a sweet, gentle voice. + +Miss Barry did not stop until she had finished her paragraph. The +cessation of her voice brought the roving eyes to a standstill; then they +flew straight to Miss Maxwell in abject appeal. "Take it away, ma'am. +Don't hurt it--but take it away!" The articulation was thick, but it did +not mask the wail in the voice, and a gigantic thumb jerked indicatively +toward the patient, asserting figure of Miss Barry. + +"All right, Mr. Brandle." Miss Maxwell's tone showed neither conciliation +nor pity; it was plainly matter-of-fact. "As it happens, I've brought you +a new nurse. Suppose you try Miss O'Leary for the next day or two." + +The wail broke out afresh: "How can I tell if I can stand her? They all +look alike--all of 'em. You're the fourth, ain't you?" He turned to the +nurse at his bedside for corroboration. + +"Then I'm the fifth," announced Sheila, "and there's luck in odd numbers." + +"Five's my number." The mammoth man looked a fraction less distracted as +he stated this important fact. "Born fifth day of the fifth month, struck +it rich when I was twenty-five, married in 'seventy-five, formed the +American Coal Trust December fifth, eighteen ninety-five. How's that for a +number?" + +"And I'm twenty-five, and this is June fifth." Sheila smiled. + +"Say, honest?" A glimmer of cheerfulness filtered through. The man +beckoned the superintendent of nurses closer and whispered in a perfectly +audible voice: "Can't you take it away now? I'd like to ask the other some +questions before you leave her for keeps." + +Miss Maxwell nodded a dismissal to the nurse who had been, and called +Sheila to the bedside. "Look her over well, Mr. Brandle. Miss O'Leary +isn't a bit sensitive." + +"O'Leary? That's not a bad name. Had a shaft boss up at my first +anthracite-mine by that name--got on with him first-class. Say"--this +direct to Sheila--"can you pray?" + +"Not unless I have to." + +"Not a bad answer. Now what--er--form of--literatoore do you prefer?" + +"Things with pep--punch--go!" + +"Say, shake." The mammoth man smiled as he held out a giant fist. Sheila +had the feeling she was shaking hands with some prehistoric animal. It was +almost repellent, and she had to summon all her sympathy and control to be +able to return the shake with any degree of cordiality. + +"All right, ma'am. You can leave us now to thrash it out man to man. You'd +better get back to managing your little white angels," and he swept a +dismissing hand toward Miss Maxwell and the door. + +Oddly enough, there was nothing rude nor affronting in the man's words. +There was too much of underlying good nature to permit it. With the +closing of the door behind the superintendent he turned to Sheila. "Now, +boss, we might as well understand each other--it'll save strikes or hurt +feelings. Eh?" + +Sheila nodded. + +"All right. I'm dying, and I know it. May burst like a paper bag or go up +like a penny balloon any minute. Now praying won't keep me from bursting a +second sooner, or send me up a foot higher, so cut it out." + +Again Sheila nodded. + +"That isn't all. Had two nurses who agreed, kept their word, but they +hadn't the nerve to keep the parson from praying, and when he was off duty +they just sat--twiddled their thumbs and waited for me to quit. Couldn't +stand that--got on my nerves something fearful." + +"Wanted to murder them, didn't you?" Sheila laughed. "Well, Mr. Brandle, +suppose we begin with supper and the baseball news. After that we'll hunt +up a thriller--biggest thriller they've got in the book-store." + +"You're boss," was the answer, but a look of relief--almost of +contentment--spread over the rubicund face. + +As Sheila was leaving for the supper-tray she paused. "How would you like +company for supper?" + +"Company? Good Lord, not the parson!" + +"No, me. If you are willing to sign for two, I could bring my supper up +with yours." + +"And not eat alone! By Jehoshaphat! Give me that slip quick." + +They had not only a good supper, they had a noisy one. The coal magnate +roared over Sheila's descriptions of some of the bath treatments and their +victims. In the midst of one particularly noisy explosion he suddenly +stopped and looked accusingly at her. "Why don't you stop me? Don't you +know doctor's orders? Had 'em dinged into my head until I could say 'em +backwards: no exertion, no excitement, avoid all undue movement, keep +quiet. Darn it all! As if I won't have to keep quiet long enough! +Well--why don't you repeat those fool orders and keep me quiet?" + +Sheila looked at him with a pair of steady gray eyes. "Do you know, Mr. +Brandle, it isn't a half-bad way to go out of this world--to go laughing." + +The mammoth man beamed. He looked for all the world like the full moon +suddenly grown beatific. "And I'd just about made up my mind that I'd +never find a blamed soul who would feel that way about it. Shake again, +boss." + +After the baseball news and a fair start in the thriller, he indulged +further in past grievances. "Hadn't any more'n settled it for sure I was +done for than the parson came and the nurse took to looking mournful. Lord +Almighty! ain't it bad enough to be carted off in a hearse once without +folks putting you in beforehand? That's not my notion of dying. I lived +pleasant and cheerful, and by the Lord Harry, I don't see why I can't die +that way! And look-a-here, boss, I don't want any of that repenting stuff. +I don't need no puling parson to tell me I'm a sinner. Any idiot couldn't +look at me without guessing that much. Say!" He leaned forward with sudden +earnestness. "Take a good look at me yourself. See any halo or angel +trappings about me?" + +Sheila laughed. "I'm afraid not. What you really ought to have--what I +miss about you--is the pipe, and the bowl, and the fiddlers three." + +"What do you mean by that?" + +"Don't you remember? It's an old nursery rhyme; probably you heard it +hundreds of times when you were a little boy: + + "Old King Cole was a merry old soul + And a merry old soul was he. + He called for his pipe and he called for his bowl, + And he called for his fiddlers three." + +The coal magnate threw back his head on the pillows and laughed long and +loud. He laughed until he grew purple and gasped for breath, and he +laughed while he choked, and Sheila flew about for stimulants. For a few +breathless moments Sheila thought she had whipped up the hearse--to use +the mammoth man's own metaphor--but after a panting half-hour the heart +subsided and the breath came easier. + +"You nearly did for me that time, boss. But it fits; Jehoshaphat, it fits +me like a B. V. D.! The only difference you might put down to simplified +spelling. Eh?" And he cautiously chuckled at his joke. + +While Sheila was making ready for the night he chuckled and lapsed into +florid, heliotrope studies by turns. "It's straight, what I told you about +being a sinner," he gave verbal expression to his thoughts at last. +"That's why I don't leave a cent to charity--not a cent. Ain't going to +have any peaked-faced, oily-tongued jackasses saying over my coffin that I +tried to buy my entrance ticket into the Lord Almighty's kingdom. No, +sirree! I know I've lived high, eaten well, and drunk some. I've made the +best of every good bargain that came within eyeshot. I treated my own +handsome--and I let the rest of the world go hang. Went to church Easter +Sunday every year and put a bill in the plate; you can figure for yourself +about how much I've given to charity. Never had any time to think of it, +anyway--probably wouldn't have given if I had. Always thought Mother'd +live longer'n me and she'd take care of that end of it. But she didn't." + +For a moment Sheila thought the man was going to cry; his lower lip +quivered like a baby's, and his eyes grew red and watery. There was no +denying it, the man was a caricature; even his grief was ludicrous. He +wiped his eyes with the back of his heliotrope sleeve and finished what he +had to say. "Don't it beat all how the pious vultures croak over you the +minute you're done for--reminding you you can't take your money away with +you? Didn't the parson--first time he came--sit in that chair and open up +and begin about the rich man's squeezing through a needle's eye and a lot +about putting away temporal stuff? I don't aim to do any squeezing into +heaven, I can tell you. And I fixed him all right. Ha, ha! I told him as +long as the money wouldn't do me and Mother any more good I'd settle it +so's it couldn't benefit any one else. And that's exactly what I've done. +Left it all for a monument for us, fancy marble, carved statues, and the +whole outfit. It'll beat that toadstool-looking tomb of that prince +somewhere in Asia all hollow. Ha, ha!" + +He leaned back to enjoy to the full this humorous legacy to himself, but +the expression of Sheila's face checked it. "Say, boss, you don't like +what I've done, do you? Run it out and dump it; I can stand for straight +talk from you." + +Sheila felt repelled even more than she had at first. To have a man at the +point of death throw his money into a heap of marble just to keep it from +doing good to any one seemed horrible. And yet the man spoke so +consistently for himself. He had lived in the flesh and for the flesh all +his days; it was not strange that there was no spirit to interpret now for +him or to give him the courage to be generous in the face of what the +world would think. + +"It's yours to spend as you like--only--I hate monuments. Rather have the +plain green grass over me. And don't you think it's queer yourself that a +man who had the grit to make himself and a pile of money hasn't the grit +to leave it invested after he goes, instead of burying it? Supposing you +can't live and use it yourself! That's no reason for not letting your +money live after you. I'd want to keep my money alive." + +"Alive? Say, what do you mean?" + +"Just what I say--alive. Charity isn't the only way to dispose of it. +Leave it to science to discover something new with; give it to the +laboratories to study up typhoid or cancer. Ever think how little we know +about them?" + +"Why should I? I don't owe anything to science." + +"Yes, you do. What developed the need of coal--what gave you the +facilities for removing it from your mines? Don't tell me you or anybody +else doesn't owe something to science." + +"Bosh!" And the argument ended there. + +The old man had a good night. He dozed as peacefully as if he had not +required propping up and occasional hypodermics to keep his lungs and +heart going properly, and when the house doctor made his early rounds this +sad and shocking spectacle met his eye: the dying coal magnate, arrayed +in a fresh and more vivid suit of heliotrope pajamas, smoking a brierwood +and keeping a violent emotional pace with the hero in the thrillingest +part of the thriller. Even Sheila's cheeks were tinged with excitement. + +"Miss O'Leary!" All the outraged sensibilities of an orthodox, +conscientious young house physician were plainly manifested in those two +words. + +Out shot the brierwood like a projectile, and a giant finger wagged at the +intruder. "Look-a-here, young man, the boss and I are running +this--er--quitting game to suit ourselves, and we don't need no +suggestions from the walking delegate, or the board of directors, or the +gang. See? Now if you can't say something pleasant and cheerful, get out!" + +"Good morning!" It was the best compromise the house physician could make. +But ten minutes after his speedy exit Doctor Greer, the specialist, and +Miss Maxwell were on the threshold, both looking unmistakably troubled. + +The coal magnate winked at Sheila. "Here comes the peace delegates--or +maybe it's from the labor union. Well, sir?" This was shot straight at +the doctor. + +"Mr. Brandle, you're mad. I refuse to take any responsibility." + +"Don't have to. That's what's been the matter--too much responsibility. It +got on my nerves. Now we want to be as--as noisy and as happy as we can, +the boss and me. And if we can't do it in this little old medicated +brick-pile of yours, why, we'll move. See? Or I'll buy it with a few tons +of my coal and give it to the boss to run." + +"When it's yours." The specialist was finding it hard to keep his temper. +The man had worn him out in the week he had been at the sanitarium. It had +been harder to manage him than a spoiled child or a lunatic. He had had to +humor him, cajole him, entreat him, in a way that galled his professional +dignity, and now to have the man deliberately and publicly kill himself in +this fashion was almost beyond endurance. He tried hard to make his voice +sound agreeable as well as determined when he launched his ultimatum. "But +in the mean time Miss O'Leary will have to be removed from the case." + +"No, you don't!" With a sweep of the giant hand the bedclothes were jerked +from their roots, and a pair of heliotrope legs projected floorward. It +took the strength of all the three present to hold him back and replace +the covering. The magnate sputtered and fumed. "First nurse you put on +here after the boss goes--I'll die on her hands in ten minutes just to get +even with you. That's what I'll do. And what's more--I'll come back to +haunt the both of you. Take away my boss--just after we get things going +pleasantly. Spoil a poor man's prospects of dying cheerful! Haven't you +any heart, man? And you, ma'am?" this to the superintendent of nurses. "By +the Lord Harry! you're a woman--you ought to have a little sympathy!" The +aggressiveness died out of the voice, and it took on the old wail Sheila +had first heard. + +"But you forget my professional responsibility in the matter--my +principles as an honorable member of my profession. I cannot allow a +patient of mine wilfully to endanger his life--even shorten it. You must +understand that, Mr. Brandle." + +A look of amused toleration spread over the rubicund face. "Bless your +heart, sonny, you're not allowing me to shorten it one minute. The boss +and I are prolonging it first-rate. Shouldn't wonder if it would get to be +so pleasant having her around I'd be working over union hours and +forgetting to quit at all. I'm old enough to be your granddaddy, so take a +bit of advice from me. When you can't cure a patient, let 'em die their +own way. Now run along, sonny. Good morning, ma'am." And then to Sheila: +"Get back to that locked door, the three bullet-holes, and the blood patch +on the floor. I've got to know what's on the other side before I touch one +mouthful of that finnan haddie you promised me for breakfast." + +After that Old King Cole had his way. The doctors visited him as a matter +of form, and Sheila improvised a chart, for he would not stand for having +temperatures taken or pulses counted. "Cut it out, boss, cut it all out. +We're just going to have a good time, you and me." And he smiled +seraphically as he drummed on the spread: + + "Old King Cole--diddy-dum-diddy-dum, + Was a merry old soul--diddy-dum-diddy-dum." + +On the second day Sheila introduced Peter Brooks into the +"Keeping-On-Going Syndicate," as the mammoth man termed their temporary +partnership. Sheila had to take some hours off duty, and as the coal +magnate absolutely refused to let another nurse cross his threshold, Peter +seemed to be the only practical solution. She knew the two men would get +on admirably. Peter could be counted on to understand and meet any +emergency that might arise, while Old King Cole would be kept content. And +Sheila was right. + +"Say, we hit it off first-rate--ran together as smooth as a parcel o' +greased tubs," the magnate confided to Sheila when she returned. "He told +me a whole lot about you--what you did for him--and the nickname they'd +given you--'Leerie.' I like that, but I like my name for you better. Eh, +boss?" + +Once admitted, Peter often availed himself of his membership in the +syndicate. He made a third at their games, turned an attentive ear to the +thriller or added his bit to the enlightenment of the conversation. And +there wasn't a topic from war to feminine-dress reform that they did not +attack and thrash out among them with all the keenness and thoroughness +of three alive and original minds. + +"Puts me thinking of the days when I was switch boss at the Cassie Maguire +Mine. Nothing but a shaver then, working up; nothing to do in the +God-forsaken hole, after work, but talk. We just about settled the affairs +of the world and gave the Lord Almighty advice into the bargain." The +mammoth man laughed a mammoth laugh. "And when we'd talked ourselves +inside out we'd have some fiddling--always a fiddle among some of the +boys. Never hear one of those old tunes that it don't take me back to the +Cassie Maguire and the way a fiddle would play the heart back into a +lonely, homesick shaver." He turned with a suspicious sniff to Sheila. +"Come, boss, the chessboard. Peter'n'me are going to have another Verdun +set-to. Only this time he's German. See? And if you don't mind, you might +fill up our pipes and bring us our four-forty bowl." + +At one time of the day only did the merriment flag--that was at dusk. +"Don't like it--never did like it," he confessed. "Something about it that +gets onto my chest and turns me gloomy. Don't suppose you ever smelled +the choke-damp, did you? Well, that's the feeling. Say, boss, wouldn't be +a bad plan to shine up that old safety of yours and give us more light in +the old pit. Mother quit about this time o' day, and it seems like I can't +forget it." + +The next day the coal magnate took a turn for the worse. The heart +specialist and the house doctor glowered ominously at Sheila as they came +to make their unwelcome rounds, and Sheila hurried them out of the room as +speedily as she could. Then it was that she thought of the fiddlers three. +An out-of-town orchestra played biweekly at the sanitarium. They were +young men, most of them, still apprentices at their art, and she knew they +would be glad enough for extra earnings. They were due that evening, and +she would engage the services of three violins for the dusk hour the old +man dreaded. She did not accomplish this without a protest from the +business office, warnings from the two physicians, and shocked comments +from the habitual gossips of the sanitarium. But Sheila held her ground +and fought for her way against their combined attacks. "Of course I know +he's dying. Don't care if the whole San faints with mortification. I'm +going to see he dies the way he wants to--keep it merry till the end." + +To the Reverend Mr. Grumble, who requested--nay, demanded--admittance, she +turned a deaf ear while she held the door firmly closed behind her. "Can't +come in. Sorry, he doesn't want you. If you must say a last prayer to +comfort yourself, say it in some other room. It will do Old King Cole just +as much good and keep him much happier. Now, please go!" + +So it happened that only Peter was present when the musicians arrived. +Sheila ushered them in with a flourish. "Old King Cole, your fiddlers +three. Now what shall they play?" + +Lucky for the indwellers of the sanitarium that the magnate's room was in +the tower and therefore little sound escaped. It is improbable if the +final ending would ever have been known to any but those present, whose +discretion could have been relied upon, but for the fact that Miss Jacobs +stood with her ear to the keyhole for fully ten minutes. It was surprising +how quickly everybody knew about it after that. It created almost as much +scandal as Sheila's own exodus had three years before. Many had the +temerity to take the lift to the third floor and pace with attentive ears +the corridor that led to the tower. These came back to fan the flame of +shocked excitement below. The doctors and Mr. Grumble came to Miss Maxwell +to interfere and put an end to this ungodly and unprofessional humoring of +one departing soul. But the superintendent of nurses refused. She had put +the case in Sheila's hands, and she had absolute faith in her. So all that +was left to the busybodies and the scandalmongers was to hear what they +could and give free rein to their tongues. + +There was, however, one mitigating fact: they could listen, and they could +talk, but they could not look beyond the closed door of the tower room. +That vivid, appalling picture was mercifully denied them. With a heaping +bowl of egg-nog beside him, and his brierwood between his lips, the coal +magnate beat time on the bedspread with a fast-failing strength, while he +grinned happily at Sheila. Beside him Peter lounged in a wheel-chair, +smoking for company, while grouped about the foot of the bed in the +attitude of a small celestial choir stood the fiddlers three. + +All the good old tunes, reminiscent of younger days of mining-camps and +dance-halls, they played as fast as fingers could fly and bows could +scrape. "Dan Tucker," "Money Musk," "The Irish Washerwoman," and "Pop Goes +the Weasel" sifted in melodic molecules through the keyhole into the +curious and receptive ears outside. And after them came "Captain Jinks" +and "The Blue Danube," "Yankee Doodle" and "Dixie." + +"Some boss!" muttered the magnate, thickly, the brierwood dropping on the +floor. "Just one solid streak of anthracite--clear through. Now give us +something else--I don't care--you choose it, boss." + +So Leerie chose "The Star-spangled Banner" and "Marching Through Georgia," +and as dusk crept closer about them, "Suwanee River" and "The Old Kentucky +Home." + +"Nice, sleepy old tunes," mumbled the coal magnate. "Guess I've napped +over-time." He opened one eye and looked at Sheila, half amused, half +puzzled. "Say, boss, light up that little old lamp o' yours and take me +down; the shaft's growing pretty black." + +The fiddlers played a hymn as their own final contribution. Sheila smiled +wistfully across the dusk to Peter. She knew it wouldn't matter now, for +Old King Cole was passing beyond the reach of hymns, prayers, or +benedictions. + +"It's over as far as you or I or he are concerned," she whispered, +whimsically. "When I come down, by and by, would you very much mind taking +me on one of those rides you promised? I want to forget that white-marble +monument." + +It was not until a week later that Sheila O'Leary met with one of the big +surprises of her rather eventful existence. A lawyer came down from New +York and asked for her. It seemed that the coal magnate had left her a +considerable number of thousands to spend for him and ease her feelings +about the monument. The codicil was quaintly worded and stated that +inasmuch as "Mother" had gone first, he guessed she would do the next best +by him. + +Sheila took Peter Brooks into her immediate confidence. "Half of it goes +for typhoid research and half for a nurses' home here. We've needed one +dreadfully. What staggers me is when did he do it?" + +Peter grinned. "When I happened to be on duty. We fixed it up, and I was +to keep the secret. He had lots of fun over it--poor old soul!" + +"Merry old soul," corrected Sheila. + +And when the nurses' home was built Sheila flatly ignored all the +suggestions of a memorial tablet with appropriate scriptural verses to +grace the cornerstone or hang in the entrance-hall. + +"Won't have it--never do in the world! Just going to have his picture over +the living-room fireplace." + +And there it hangs--a gigantic reproduction of Old King Cole, done by the +greatest poster artist of America. + + + + +Chapter III + +THE CHANGELING + + +He arrived in the arms of his mother, the mulatto nurse having in some +inexplicable and inconsiderate fashion acquired measles on the ship coming +from their small South American republic. Francisco Enrique Manuel Machado +y Rodriguez--Pancho, for short--and his mother were allowed to disembark +only because of his appalling lack of health and her promise to take +harborage in a hospital instead of a hotel. + +Having heard of the sanitarium from her sister-in-law's brother's wife's +aunt, who had been there herself, and having traveled already over a +thousand miles, the additional hundred or so seemed too trivial to bother +about. So the señora kept her promise to the officials by buying her +ticket thitherward, and Flanders, the bus-driver, arrived just in time to +see three porters unload them and their luggage on the small station +platform. The señora was weeping bitterly, the powder spattered and +smeared all over her pretty, shallow little face; Pancho was clawing and +scratching the air, while he shrieked at the top of his lungs--the only +part of him that gave any evidence of strength. + +Having disposed of the luggage, Flanders hurried back to the assistance of +the señora, whereupon the brown atom clawed him instead of the air and +fortissimoed his shrieking. Flanders promptly returned him to his mother, +backing away to the bus and muttering something about "letting wildcat's +cubs be." + +"Wil'cat?" repeated the señora through her sobs. "I don't know what ees +wil'cat. I theenk eet ees one leetle deevil. Tsa, Panchito! Ciera la +boca." And she shook him. + +During the drive to the sanitarium Flanders cast periodic glances within. +Each time he looked the atom appeared to be shrieking louder, while his +mother was shaking harder and longer. By the time they had reached their +destination the breath had been shaken quite out of him. He lay back +panting in his mother's arms, with only strength enough for a feeble and +occasional snarl. His bonnet of lace and cerise-pink ribbon had come +untied and had slipped from his head, disclosing a mass of black hair +curled by nature and matted by neglect. It gave the last uncanny touch to +the brown atom's appearance and caused Hennessy, who was sweeping the +crossing, to drop his broom and stare agape at the new arrivals. + +"Faith, is it one o' them Brazilian monkeys?" he whispered, pulling +Flanders by the sleeve. "I've heard the women are makin' pets o' them, +although I never heard they were after fixin' them up wi' lace an' ribbons +like that." + +"It's a kid." Flanders stated the fact without any degree of positiveness +as he rubbed three fingers cautiously down his cheek. He was feeling for +scars. "Guess it's a kid all right, but it scratches like a cat, gosh durn +it!" + +Hennessy, however, shook a positive head. "That's no kid. Can't ye see for +yourself it's noways human? Accordin' to the Sunday papers it's all the +style for blond dancers an' society belles to be fetchin' one o' them +little apes about. They're thinkin' if they hang a bit o' live ugliness +furninst, their beauty will look all the more ravishin'." + +"Live ugliness," repeated Flanders; then he laughed. "You've struck it, +Hennessy." + +Meanwhile Francisco Enrique Manuel Machado y Rodriguez--Pancho, for +short--and his mother had passed into the hands of the sanitarium porter. +He had handed them on to the business office, which in turn had handed +them over to the superintendent. The superintendent had shared the +pleasure with the house staff, the staff had retired in favor of the baby +specialist, and at half past seven o'clock that night neither he nor the +superintendent of nurses had been able to coax, argue, command, or +threaten a nurse into taking the case. + +"I'm afraid you will have to do with an undergraduate and make the best of +it." Miss Maxwell acknowledged her helplessness with a faint smile. + +But Doctor Fuller shook his head. "Won't do. It means skilled care and +watching for days. A nurse without experience would be about as much good +as an incubator. Think if you dismissed the four who've refused, you could +frighten a fifth into taking it?" + +This time the superintendent of nurses shook her head. "Not this case. +They all feel about it the same way. Miss Jacobs tells me she didn't take +her training to nurse monkeys." + +The old doctor chuckled. "Don't know as I blame her; thought it was a new +species myself when I first clapped eyes on it. But shucks! I've seen some +of our North American babies look like Lincoln Imps when they were down +with marasmus. Give me a few weeks and a good nurse and his own mother +wouldn't recognize--" He interrupted himself with a pounding fist on the +desk. "Where's Leerie?" + +"You can't have her--not this time." Miss Maxwell's lips became a fraction +more firm, while her eyes sharpened into what her training girls had come +to call her "forceps expression." + +"Why not?" + +"The girl's just off that case for Doctor Fritz; she's tired out. Remember +she's been through three unbroken years of hospitals, and we've worked her +on every hard case we've had since she came back. I'm going to see that +she gets forty-eight hours of rest now." + +"Let her have them next time." Doctor Fuller put all his persuasive charm +into the words. "I need Leerie--some one who can roll up her sleeves and +pitch in. Let me have her just this once." + +But Miss Maxwell was obdurate. "She's asleep now, and she's going to sleep +as long as she needs to. I'll give you Miss Grant--she's had a month at +the Maternity at Rochester." + +"A month!" Scorn curled up the ends of the doctor's mustache. The next +instant they were almost touching in a broad grin. "Leerie likes cases +like this--just eats them up. I'm going after her." And before the +superintendent of nurses could hold him he was down the corridor on his +way to the nurses' dormitory. + +Ten minutes later he was back, grinning harder than ever. He had only time +to thrust his head in the door and wave a triumphant arm. "She's +dressing--as big a fool about babies as I am! Said she'd slept a whole +hour and felt fresh as a daisy. How's that for spunk?" + +"I call it nerve." Miss Maxwell smiled a hopeless smile. "What am I going +to do with you doctors? You wear out all my best nurses and you won't +take--" But Doctor Fuller had fled. + +In spite of his boast of her, the baby specialist saw Sheila O'Leary +visibly cringe when she took her first look at Pancho. He lay sprawling on +his mother's bed in a room littered with hastily opened bags and trunks +out of which had been pulled clothing of all kinds and hues. He had been +relieved of the lace and pink ribbons and was swathed only in shirt and +roundabout, his arms and legs projected like licorice sticks; being of the +same color and very nearly the same thickness. He was dozing, tired out +with the combination of much travel, screaming, shaking, and loss of +breath. So wasted was he that the skin seemed drawn tight over temple and +cheek-bones; the eyes were pitifully sunken, and colorless lips fell back +over toothless gums. + +"How old is--it?" Sheila whispered at last. + +"About nine months." + +Sheila shuddered. "Just the adorable age. Ought to be all pink cheeks, +dimples, and creases--and look at it!" + +"I know, but wait. Give us time and we'll get some of those things +started." Doctor Fuller wagged his head by way of encouragement. + +Sheila answered with a deprecatory shake. "This time I don't believe you. +That would be a miracle, and you can do about everything but miracles. +Honestly, it doesn't seem as if I could touch it; looks about a thousand +years old and just human enough to be horrible." + +The old doctor eyed her askance. "Not going back on me, are you?" + +"Of course I'm not, but there's no use in making believe it will be any +joy-game. I'll be hating it every minute I'm on the case." + +"Hate it as much as you like, only stick to it. Hello there, bub!" This to +the brown atom, who was opening his eyes. + +The eyes were large and brown and as soft and appealing as a baby seal's. +For a moment they looked with strange, wondering intensity at the two +figures bending over it, then with sudden doubling and undoubling of +fists, a frantic upheaval of brown legs, the atom opened volcanically and +poured forth scream after scream. It writhed, it clawed the air, it +looked every whit as horrible as Sheila had claimed. + +"Going to run?" the old doctor asked, anxiously. + +For answer Sheila bent down lower and picked up the writhing mass. With a +firm hand she braced it against her shoulder, patting it gently and +swaying her body rhythmically to the patting. "Some eyes and some temper!" +laughed Sheila. "Where's the mother?" + +The screaming brought the corridor nurse to the door. "Where's the +mother?" Sheila repeated. + +The corridor nurse pointed to the strewn luggage and gave a contemptuous +shrug. "Gone down to dinner looking like a bird of paradise. She said if +the baby cried I was to stir up some of that milk from that can, mix it +with water from that faucet, put it in that bottle, and feed it to him." +Words failed to convey the outraged disgust in her voice. + +The milk indicated was condensed milk in a half-emptied can; the bottle +was the regulation kind for babies and as filthy as dirty glass could +look. Sheila and Doctor Fuller exchanged glances. + +"Plenty of fight in the little beggar or he wouldn't be outlasting--" The +doctor swallowed the remainder of the sentence, cut short by a startled +look on Sheila's face. + +The screams had stopped a minute before, and Sheila believed the atom had +dropped asleep. But instead of feeling the tiny body relax as a sleeping +baby's will, it was growing slowly rigid. With this realization she strode +to the bed and put the atom down. Before their eyes the body stiffened, +while the head rolled slowly from side to side and under the half-closed +lids the eyeballs rolled with it. + +"Convulsions!" announced the corridor nurse, with an anxious look toward +the door. Then, as a bell tinkled, she voiced her relief in a quick +breath. "That's sixty-one. I'm hiking--" + +"No, you don't!" The doctor jerked her back; he wanted to shake her. +"You'll hustle some hot water for us, and then you'll stand by to hustle +some more. See?" He was shedding all unnecessary clothing as he spoke, and +Sheila was peeling the atom free of shirt and roundabout as fast as +skilled fingers could move. + +It is a wonderful thing to watch the fight between human skill and death +for the life of a baby. So little it takes to swing the victory either +way, so close does it border on the miraculous, that few can stand and see +without feeling the silent, invisible presence of the Nazarene. A life +thus saved seems to gather unto itself a special significance and value +for those who have fought for it and those who receive it again. It +creates new feelings and a clearer vision in blind, unthinking motherhood; +it awakens to a vital response hitherto dormant fatherhood. And even the +callous outsider becomes exalted with the wonder and closeness of that +unseen presence. + +As the brown atom writhed from one convulsion into another, Sheila and the +old doctor worked with compressed lips and almost suspended breath; they +worked like a single mind supplied with twice the usual amount of +auxiliaries. They saw, without acknowledging it, the gorgeous, tropical +figure that came and stood half-way between the door and the bed; lips +carmined, throat and cheeks heavy with powder, jewels covering ears, neck, +fingers, and wrists, she looked absurdly unreal beside the nurse in her +uniform and the doctor in his shirt-sleeves. Occasionally Sheila glanced +at her. If they won, would the mother care? The question came back to her +consciousness again and again. In her own experience she knew how often +the thing one called motherhood would come into actual existence after a +struggle like this when birth itself had failed to accomplish anything but +a physical obligation. Believing this, Sheila fought the harder. + +After an hour the convulsions subsided. A few more drops of brandy were +poured down the tiny throat, and slowly the heart took up its regulation +work. Sheila wrapped the atom in a blanket, put it back on the bed, and +beckoned to the mother. + +Curiosity seemed to be the one governing emotion of the señora. She looked +without any trace of grief, and, having looked, she spoke impassively: "I +theenk eet dead. Yes?" + +Doctor Fuller, with perspiration pouring from him, transfixed her with a +stare. "No! That baby's going to get well now, and you're going to let +Miss O'Leary teach you how to take proper care of it. Understand?" Then +clapping his fellow-fighter on the back, he beamed down upon her. +"Leerie, you're one grand soldier!" + +The monotone of the gorgeous señora broke up any response Sheila might +have given. "I theenk eet die, all the same," came the impassive voice. +"The _padre_ on the ship make it all ready for die--I theenk yes pret' +soon." + +"No!" The doctor fairly thundered it forth. + +She stooped and pulled away a fold of the blanket with the tips of her +fingers. "Eet look ver' ugly--like eet die. I theenk--all the same." + +The doctor caught up his cast-off clothing and flung himself out of the +room. Sheila watched him go, a faint smile pulling at the corners of her +mouth. Strange! He had so evidently reached the end of his self-control, +optimism, and patience, while she was just beginning to find hers. In the +sweep of a second things looked wonderfully clear and hopeful. She thought +she could understand what was in the mind and heart of the señora; what +was more significant, she thought she could understand the reason for it. +And what you can understand you can cope with. + +She watched the señora searching in this trunk and that; she saw her jerk +forth a diminutive dress of embroidery and fluted lace; while she thought +the whole thing through to the finish and smiled one of her old +inscrutable smiles. + +"Pret' dress," said the señora. "Plent' lace and reebon. You put on for +bury eet--I go find _padre_." + +"No," said Sheila, emphatically, "you stay here. I'll go and find the +_padre_." + +She left them both in the charge of the corridor nurse and flew for the +telephone. It took her less than a minute to get Father O'Friel; it took +but a trifle more for her to outline her plan and bind him to it. And +Father O'Friel, with a comprehension to match his conscientiousness, and a +sense of humor to match them both, hardly knew whether to be shocked or +amused. + +"Why not appeal to the baby's father?" + +"Realize it takes a month for a letter to reach that little South American +ant-hill? Write now if you want to, but let me be trying my way while the +letter is traveling." + +"All right. But if it doesn't work--" + +"It will. When my feelings about anything run all to the good this way, +I'd bank anything on them. Now please hurry." + +So it came about that instead of a burial service that night Father +O'Friel conducted an original and unprecedented adoption ceremony. Without +even a witness the señora signed a paper which she showed no inclination +to read and which she would hardly have understood had she attempted it. +It was enough for her that she could give away Francisco Enrique Manuel +Machado y Rodriguez to a foolish nurse who was plainly anxious to be +bothered with him. Death had seemed the only release from an obligation +that exhausted and frightened her, and from which neither pleasure nor +personal pride could be obtained. But this was another way mercifully held +out to her, and she accepted it with gratitude and absolute belief. +Eagerly she agreed to the conditions Sheila laid down; the father was to +be notified and forced to make a life settlement on the atom; in the mean +time she was to remain at the sanitarium, pay all expenses, and interfere +in no way with the nurse or the baby. So desirous was she to display her +gratitude that she heaped the atom's wardrobe--lace, ribbons, and +embroidery--upon Sheila, and kissed the hem of Father O'Friel's cassock. + +"_Qué gracioso--qué magnifico!_" Then she yawned behind her tinted nails. +"I have ver' much the sleep. I find anothaire room and make what you +call--_la cama_." At the door she turned and cast a farewell look upon the +blanketed bundle. "Eet look ver' ugly--all the same I theenk eet die." + +It took barely ten minutes for word of the adoption to reach Doctor +Fuller, and it brought him running. "Good Lord! Leerie, are you crazy? Did +you think I pulled you out of bed to-night to start an orphan-asylum? What +do you mean, girl?" + +Sheila looked down at her newly acquired possession, and for the first +time that night the strange, luminous look that was all her own, that had +won for her her nickname of Leerie, crept into her eyes; they fairly +dazzled the old doctor with their shining. "Honestly, don't know myself. +Still testing out my feelings in my think laboratory." + +"You can't raise that baby and keep on with your nursing. Too much +responsibility, anyway, for a young person. What's more, the mother +shouldn't be allowed to dodge it. She can be made fit." + +"How are you going to do it? Train her with harness and braces? Or moral +suasion--or the courts?" + +"And I thought you hated it, couldn't bear to touch it," growled the baby +specialist. + +"Did. But that's past tense. Since I fought for it, it's suddenly become +remarkably precious. And that's the precise feeling I'm testing up in the +lab." + +"In the name of common sense what do you mean, Leerie?" + +She patted his arm soothingly. "There, there. Go to bed; you're tuckered +out. Leave me alone for two months, and I'll tell you. And suppose you +write down that milk formula before you go; he's going to wake up as +fighting hungry as a little tiger-cat." + +How the sanitarium took the news of the arrivals and the rumor of the +adoption, what they thought of the gorgeous and irresponsible señora and +Leerie's latest exploit, does not concern the story. It is enough to say +that tongues wagged abundantly; and when Sheila appeared some ten days +later in the pine grove wheeling a perambulator every one who was out and +could manufacture the flimsiest excuse for her curiosity hurried to the +carriage and thrust an inquisitive head under the hood. It seemed as if +hundreds blocked the walk from the pond to the rest-house. + +"Bad as a circus parade," thought Sheila. "Can't stay here, or they'll put +us in a tent and ask admission." Then she spied Hennessy coming with his +platter of bread for the swans, and called to him. Somehow he managed to +scatter the crowd, and Sheila clung to the sleeve of his blue jumper as if +it had been so much cork to a man overboard. "Listen, Hennessy, I want to +take Pancho away from the San. You and Marm have a cozy place, and it's +far enough away. There's only the two of you. Can't you take us in?" + +But Hennessy was likewise thrusting a head under the hood. "Honest to God, +Miss Leerie, is it human?" + +"Hennessy, don't be an idiot!" + +"But I saw the face on it--an' the scratchin' it did the day it was +fetched in. Does it still be scratchin'?" + +"Sometimes." Sheila smiled faintly. "He hasn't had time yet to forget all +those shakings. Well, can we come?" + +Hennessy eyed the perambulator fearsomely. "Have to ask Marm. Faith, do ye +think, now, if it had been human, its mother would have given it away same +as if it had been a young cat or dog too many in the litter?" + +"Mothers don't have to love their babies; there's no birth license to +sign, you know, with a love-and-cherish clause in it. Just come, wanted or +not, and afterward--" + +But Hennessy was deep in speculations of his own. "Now if it was Ireland, +Miss Leerie, do ye know what I would be thinkin'?" + +"What?" + +He lowered his voice and looked furtively over his shoulder. "A +changeling! Sure as you're born, Miss Leerie, I'm thinkin' it's one o' +them little black imps the fairies leave in place o' the real child +they're after stealin'. I disremember if they have the likes o' that in +South America, but that's my notion, just the same." + +Sheila O'Leary laughed inside and out. "Hennessy, you're wonderful. And +who but an Irishman would have thought of it! A changeling--a most +changeable changeling! What's the treatment?" + +"A good brewin' of egg-shells--goose egg-shells if ye have 'em, hens' if +ye haven't. But don't ye be laughin'; 'tis a sign o' black doin's, an' +laughin' might bring bad luck on ye." + +Sheila sobered. "We'll brew egg-shells. Now hurry home to Marm and coax +her hard, Hennessy." + +Because Sheila O'Leary invariably had her way among the many who loved and +believed in her, and because Hennessy and Marm Hennessy were numbered +conspicuously among these, Sheila and her adopted moved early the +following morning into the diminutive and immaculate house of Hennessy, +with a vine-covered porch in front and a hen-yard in the rear. And that +night there was a plentiful brew of egg-shells on the kitchen stove, done +in the most approved Irish fashion, with the atom near by to inhale the +fumes. + +"Maybe 'twill work, an' then again maybe 'twon't." Hennessy looked +anxious. "Magic, like anything else, often spoils in transportatin'." + +"Oh, it will work!" Sheila spoke with conviction. "And we'll hope the +señora's letter won't travel too fast." + +So the names of Sheila O'Leary and Francisco Enrique Manuel Machado y +Rodriguez were crossed off the books of the sanitarium, and the gossips +saw them no more. Only Doctor Fuller and Peter Brooks sought them out in +their new quarters, the doctor to attend professionally, Peter to attend +to the dictates of a persistent heart. Never a day went by that he did not +find his feet trailing the dust on the road to the house of Hennessy, and +Sheila dropped into the habit of watching for him from the vine-covered +porch at a certain time every afternoon. The picture of the best nurse at +the sanitarium sitting in a little old rocker with the brown atom kicking +and crowing on her lap, and looking down the steps with eyes that seemed +to grow daily more luminous, came to be an accepted reality to both Peter +and the doctor--as much of a reality as the reaching out of the atom's +small tendril-like fingers to curl about one's thumb or to cling to one's +watch-charm. + +"Loving little cuss," muttered Peter one afternoon. "Can you tell me how +any mother under the sun could resist those eyes or the clutch of those +brown paws?" + +"Don't forget one point," Sheila spoke quietly; "he wasn't a loving little +cuss then." + +"He'll go down on the books as my pet case," chuckled the doctor. "Four +pounds in four weeks! Think of it, on a whole-milk formula!" + +Hennessy wagged his head knowingly at Sheila, and when they had gone he +snorted forth his contempt for professional ignorance. "Milk! +Fiddlesticks! Sure a docthor don't know everything. 'Twas the egg-shells +that done it, an' Marm an' me can bear witness he quit the scratchin' an' +began the smilin' from that very hour. Look at him now! Can ye deny it, +Miss Leerie?" + +"I'm not wanting to, Hennessy." Whereupon Sheila proved the matter by +reducing the atom to squeals of joy while she retold the old history of +the pigs with the aid of five little brown toes. + +Between Peter and Hennessy, Sheila came into possession of many facts +concerning the señora. Her dresses and her jewels were the talk of the +sanitarium. She applied herself diligently to all beautifying treatments +and the charming of susceptible young men. Presumably life to her meant +only a continuous process of adorning herself and receiving admiration. So +she spent her days dressing and basking in the company of a dozen +different swains, and the atom cast no annoying shadow on her pathway. + +August came, and the atom discovered his legs. Sheila disregarded the lace +and ribbons with a sigh of relief and took to making rompers. They were +adorable rompers with smocking and the palest of pink collars and belts. +The licorice sticks had changed to a rich olive brown and had assumed +sufficient rotundity to allow of pink-and-white socks and white +ankle-ties. In all the busy years of her nursing Sheila had never had time +for anything like this; she had never had a baby for longer than a week or +two at a time. Just as she was beginning to feel her individual share in +them they had all gone the way of properly parented offspring, and never +had she sewed a single baby dress. She gloried in the lengths of dimity +and poplin, in the intricacies of new stitches and embroidery. And Peter, +watching from a step on the porch, gloried in the picture she made. + +When a romper was finished it had to be tried on that very minute. She +would whisk up the atom from the hammock where he lay kicking, and slip +him into it, holding him high for Peter to admire. + +"He's a cherub done in bronze," said Peter, one day. "Here, give him to +me." And later, as he perched him on his shoulder and tickled his ribs +until he squirmed with glee he announced, "If I wasn't a homeless bachelor +I'd take him off your hands in about two minutes." + +"What's that?" shouted Doctor Fuller, coming down the street. "Did you say +anything about re-adoption? Well, you might as well know now that Mrs. +Fuller and I intend taking Pancho off Leerie's hands as soon as she's +ready to go back to work again. Aren't you getting lazy, Leerie?" + +For once Sheila failed to respond in kind to the doctor's chaffing. All +the shine faded out of her eyes. "Can't believe two months have gone--a +month for a letter to go, a month for an answer to come. I'm afraid none +of us will keep him very much longer." + +"Don't worry, they won't want him back. Besides, they've forfeited +their right to him," the old doctor snorted, indignantly. + + +[Illustration: Holding him high for Peter to admire] + + +"Not legally. When the letter comes, you'll see." There was none of the +anticipated delight in Sheila's voice that had been there on that first +night when she had laid her plans and sworn Father O'Friel into backing +her up. Her voice was as colorless as her eyes were dull; for some +miraculous reason the life and inner light that seemed such an inseparable +part of her had suddenly gone out. She reached up and removed the atom +from Peter's shoulder. + +Hennessy, who had joined the group, was the last to speak. "Sure it's +mortial good of both ye gentlemen to lift the throuble o' raisin' the wee +one off Miss Leerie, but if any one lifts it, it's Marm an' me. We had +that settled the next morning after we fetched him over an' knew 'twas the +real one we'd got, after all." + +"The real one? What do you mean by that?" The doctor looked puzzled. + +Hennessy winked his only answer. + +Through the first days of September Sheila waited with feverish anxiety. +The hours spent on the vine-covered porch with the atom, asleep or awake, +for steady company, and Peter for occasional, passed all too quickly. For +the first time in her life Sheila wished days back; she would have put a +checking hand on time had she had the power. Then just as she was making +up her mind that her fear was for nothing, that her plans had gloriously +failed and Pancho was to be hers for all time, the wretched news came. +Peter brought it, hurrying hatless down the street, and Sheila, knowing in +her heart what had happened, went down the steps to meet him. + +"Is it a letter--or a wire--or what? And where's the señora?" + +"Having hysterics in front of the business office." Peter stopped to get +his breath. "The husband wired from New York--he'll be down on the morning +train. It seems the señora wired him when she first got here that Pancho +was dying, so she didn't see any need of changing it in her letter. She +said she wanted the money for a monument and masses--and he could send it +in a draft. Guess he thought more of the boy than the mother did, for he's +come up to bring the body home and put up the monument down there. Now +she doesn't know what to tell him. Can you beat that for straight +fiction?" + +Sheila picked up the atom and disappeared inside without a word. When she +reappeared a few minutes later, the atom was arrayed in his most becoming +romper, his black curls were brushed into an encircling halo, his hands +clapping over some consciousness of pleasurable excitement. Sheila tucked +him into his carriage and faced Peter with a grim look of command. "You're +to play policeman, understand! Walk back of me all the way. If I show any +sign of turning back or running away, arrest me on the spot." + +"What are you going to do?" + +"What two months ago I thought would be the easiest thing in the +world--and what I wouldn't be doing now for a million dollars if I hadn't +given my word to Father O'Friel and the law wasn't against me." + +As Peter had rightfully reported, the señora was having hysterics in front +of the business office, with the business and hospital staff trying their +best to quench her, and as many patients as the lobby would hold watching +in varying degrees of curiosity. Only one of Latin blood could have +achieved a scene of such melodramatic abandon and stamped it as genuine, +but no one present doubted the grief and despair of the señora as she +paced the floor wringing her hands and wailing in her native tongue. +Sheila entered by way of the basement and the lift, and she wheeled the +atom's carriage into the inner circle of the crowd, with Peter still in +attendance. + +For the moment the interest swerved from the weeping figure to the cooing +occupant of the carriage. The atom was still clapping his hands, and a +pink flush of excitement tinged the olive of the cheeks. "Look at that +cunning baby!"... "Isn't he a darling?"... "Why, isn't that the South +American baby?"... "Sh-h-h--deformed or something."... "Of course, it +can't be." Sentences, whole and in fragments, came to Sheila as she pushed +her way through the crowd. + +Something of this new interest must have penetrated the señora's +consciousness, for her wailing ceased; she cocked her head on one side +like a listening parrakeet. "Who say babee? I theenk--I theenk--" Then she +saw Sheila. A look of immediate recognition swept over her face, but it +was gone the instant she looked at the atom. "Who that babee?" she +demanded. + +"Mine." Sheila pinned her with steady eyes, while her mouth looked as if +it could never grow gentle and demure again. + +Incredulity, suspicion, amazement, were all registered on the pretty, +shallow face. "Your babee? How you get babee?" + +Sheila made no answer. + +The señora looked again at the atom; she held out a timorous finger to +him. He responded cordially by curling a small fist promptly about it. +"_Madre de Dios, qué bonito! Qué chico y hermoso!_" Then, to Sheila: "I +give you seeck babee--eet no die? You make thees babee out of seeck babee, +yes?" + +Sheila still remained silent. + +The señora turned to the atom for the confirmation she desired. "_Nene, +como te llamas?_" + +It was intensely entertaining to the atom. He wagged the señora's finger +frantically, tossed back his head, and gave forth a low, gurgling laugh. +"_Jesu!_ That ees hees papa. He look like that when he laugh. _Tu nombre, +nene--tu nombre?_" With a fresh outburst she sank down beside the +carriage and buried her face in the brown legs and pink socks. + +But the atom did not approve of this. His lower lip dropped and quivered; +he reached out his arm to Sheila. "Ma-ma-ma-ma," he coaxed. + +"You no ma-ma, I ma-ma." The señora was on her feet, shaking an angry fist +at Sheila. But in an instant her anger was gone; she was down on her knees +again, clasping Sheila's skirt, while her voice wailed forth in +supplication. "You no keep leetle babee? You ver' good, ver' kind, +señorita--you _muy simpatica_, yes? You give leetle babee. I ma-ma. Yes?" + +But Sheila O'Leary stood grim and unyielding. "No. He is mine. When he was +sick, dying, you didn't want him. You did not like to look at him because +he was ugly; you did not like to hear him cry--so you abused him. Now, +he's all well; he's a pretty baby; he does not cry; he does not scratch. I +never shake him; he loves me very, very much. Now I keep him!" Thus Sheila +delivered her ultimatum. + +But the señora still clung. "I no shake babee now. I love babee now. +Please--please--his pa-pa come. You give heem back?" + +Sheila unclasped the señora's hands, turned the atom's carriage about, and +deliberately wheeled him away. + +Out of the lobby to the sidewalk she was pursued by pleading cries, +expostulating reproofs, as well as actual particles of the crowd itself, +the Reverend Mr. Grumble, the wife of one of the trustees, a handful of +protesting patients, following to urge the rights of the prostrated +mother. But Sheila refused to be held back or argued with; stoically she +kept on her way. When she reached the little vine-covered porch only +Peter, Father O'Friel, and Doctor Fuller remained as escort. + +"You can't keep him, Leerie. You've got to give him up." The old doctor +spoke sorrowfully but firmly. + +"It was only a mock adoption, and you promised if she ever wanted him back +she should have him," Father O'Friel reminded her. + +"She's his mother, after all," Peter put in, lamely. + +At that Sheila exploded. "You men make me tired! 'She's his mother, after +all.' After all what? Cruelty, neglect, heartlessness, hoping he would +die--glad to be rid of him! That's about all the sense of justice you +have. Let a woman weep and call for her baby, and every man within earshot +would hand him over without considering for a moment what kind of care she +would give him. Oh, you--make--me--sick!" Sheila buried her face in the +nape of Pancho's neck. + +Doctor Fuller, who had always known her, who had stood by her in her +disgrace when she had been sent away from the sanitarium three years +before and had believed in her implicitly in spite of all damning +evidence, who had fought for her a dozen times when she had called down +upon her head the wrath of the business office, looked now upon her +silent, shaking figure with open-mouthed astonishment. In all those years +he had never seen Leerie cry, and he couldn't quite stand it. + +"There, there, child! We understand--we're not quite the duffers you make +us out. Of course, by all rights, human and moral, the little shaver +belongs to you, but you can't keep him, just the same." + +"Know it! Needn't rub it in! Wasn't going to!" Sheila raised a wet face, +with red-rimmed eyes and lips that trembled outrageously. She couldn't +steady them to save her, and so she let them tremble while she stuttered +forth her last protest. "Didn't think for a moment I wouldn't give him +back, d-d-did you? That was my plan--my way. I wanted Father O'Friel to +let me try--t-t-t-thought all along he'd grow into such an ad-d-d-dorable +mite his m-m-m-mother'd be wanting him back. What I didn't count on was my +wanting to k-k-keep him." Sheila swallowed hard. She wanted to get rid of +that everlasting choke in her throat. When she spoke again her voice was +steadier. "But I tell you one thing. She doesn't get him without fighting +for him. She's going to fight for him as I fought that night in the +sanitarium, and you're going to help me keep her fighting. Understand? +Then perhaps when she gets him she'll have some faint notion of how +precious a baby can be." With a more grim expression than any of the three +had ever seen on her usually luminous face, Sheila O'Leary shouldered the +atom and disappeared within the house. + +The three men stood by her while Hennessy guarded the house. For the rest +of the day the señora, backed by the business office and a procession of +interested sympathizers, stormed the parish house and demanded to see the +paper that she had signed. They stormed Doctor Fuller's office and +demanded his co-operation, or at least what information he had to give. +They consulted the one lawyer in the town and three others within car +distance, but their advice availed little, inasmuch as Father O'Friel had +refused to give up the paper until the baby's father arrived, and they +could get no intelligent idea from the señora of how legal the adoption +had been made. By keeping perfectly dumb the three were able to hold the +crowd in abeyance, and the señora, looking anything but a bird of +paradise, came back to them again and again to weep, to plead, to bribe. + +The excitement held until midnight, an unprecedented occurrence for the +sanitarium. It was still dark the next morning when Hennessy was roused +from the haircloth sofa in the hall, where he was still keeping guard, by +the fumbling of a hand on the door-knob. "Who's there?" roared Hennessy. + +"Please--eet ees me--the Señora Machado y Rodriguez." + +"Go 'way! Shoo-oo!" Hennessy banged the door with his fist as he always +banged the bread-platter to scatter the swans. + +"I go when I see babee," came the feeble response to his racket. + +"Let her in, Hennessy," came the voice of Sheila from up-stairs. + +Hennessy unbarred the door, and a shaken, pathetic little figure crept in. +All the coy prettiness was gone for the moment; the swollen eyes had +circles about them, the cheeks were sallow and free of powder as the lips +were free of carmine. The mouth quivered like a grief-stricken child's. +"Please--please--I see babee?" came the wail again. + +"Yes. Come up softly," Sheila called from the head of the stairs. + +The little figure crept up eagerly. Sheila put out an arm and led her into +a room where a single candle burned beside the bed. There lay the atom, +rosy and dimpling in his sleep. + +It is to be doubted if the señora had ever dreamed of such a possession +after the appalling reality of the original Francisco Enrique Manuel +Machado y Rodriguez. In her ignorance and youth she had accepted ugliness, +sickness, and peevish crying as the normal attributes of babyhood, and +because of this she had loathed it. Therefore to be suddenly confronted +with her awful mistake, to find that she had thrown away something that +was beautiful and enchanting, to know she had forfeited what might have +been hers, to feel in a small degree the first longing of motherhood and +be denied it--all this was born into the slowly awakening consciousness of +the señora. It almost transformed her face into homely holiness as she +made her one supreme prayer and sacrifice. "You give me my babee--now--you +give heem and not keep--and I give you all these. See?" She held out her +hands that had been clasped under the heavy mantilla that covered her head +and shoulders. Opening them, she thrust them close, that Sheila might +look. They were filled with jewels--the jewels she adored, that had +contributed a large part to the joy of her existence. Pins, rings, +necklaces, bracelets--the señora had not kept back a single ornament. +"You--you and the blessed Maria will give heem back to me?" + +"Get down and pray to the Maria," commanded Sheila. "Promise her that if +she will give your baby back to you you will take care of him for ever and +ever. Never neglect him, never shake nor slap him, never give him bad milk +to make him sick. Promise you'll always love him and keep him laughing and +pretty. And remember--break your promise, let anything happen to Pancho +again, and Maria will not give him back to you another time." + +The sanitarium never learned in detail how Señor Machado became reconciled +to a live son, not being present when the news was conveyed to him. They +saw him arrive, however, looking very much shaken with his bereavement, +and they saw him depart with his son perched high upon his shoulder, +wearing the expression of one who has come unexpectedly into a great +possession, while the señora clung to them both. The sanitarium waved them +off with gladness and satisfaction--all but four unsmiling outsiders. So +great a hole can a departing atom sometimes leave behind that those four +who had given him temporary care and guardianship went about for days with +sorrow written plainly upon them. Hennessy fed the swans in bitter +silence; Peter moped, with a laugh for no one; Doctor Fuller groaned +whenever South America was mentioned; while all three knew they could not +even fathom the deepness or the bigness of that hole for Sheila. + +Peter took her for a twilight ride in his car the first empty night. "Go +on and cry it out--I sha'n't mind," he urged as he speeded the car along a +country road. + +Sheila smiled faintly. "Thank you--can't. Just feel bruised and banged all +over--feel as if I needed a plunge in that old pool of Bethesda." + +They spun on in silence for a few miles more before Sheila spoke again. "I +learned one wonderful thing from Pancho--something I never felt sure of +before." + +"What was that?" + +"Sorry--can't tell. It's the sort of thing you tell only the man you +marry, after you've discovered he's the only man you ever could have +married." + +Peter speeded the car ahead and smiled quietly into the gathering +darkness. Fortunately he was not an impatient man. + +There is one point concerning the atom that Hennessy and Doctor Fuller +still wrangle over, neither of them having the slightest conception of the +other's point of view. + +"That was a case of good nursing and milk," the old doctor persists. + +While Hennessy beats the air with his fists and shouts: "Nothing of the +sort! 'Twas egg-shells that done it." + + + + +Chapter IV + +FOR THE HONOR OF THE SAN + + +Peter Brooks paced the sanitarium grounds like a man possessed. Hands +thrust deep into pockets, teeth hard clenched, head bare, the raw October +wind ruffling his heavy crop of hair like a cock's comb. So suggestive was +the resemblance that Hennessy, watching him from the willow stump by the +pond, was forced to remark to Brian Boru, the gray swan, that Mr. Peter +looked like a young rooster, after growing his spurs, looking for his +first fight. + +"Aye, an' for one I'm wishin' he'd be findin' it," continued Hennessy. +"He's bided peaceful an' patient till there is no virtue left in him. Ye +can make believe women be civilized if ye like, but I'm knowin' that a +woman's sure to go to the man that fights the hardest to get her, same as +it was in the savage day o' the world. An' there's nothing that sets a +man right quicker with himself than a good fight, tongues or fists." + +At that moment Peter would have gladly chosen either or both if fate could +only have furnished him with a legitimate combatant. But a man cannot +fight gossipy old ladies or jealous, petty-minded nurses, or a doctor whom +he has never met and whose transgressions he cannot swear to. And yet +Peter wanted to double up his fists and pitch into the whole community; he +felt himself all brute and yearned for wholesale slaughter. + +Peter had come to the sanitarium in the beginning to be cured of a +temporal malady, only to rise from his bed stricken with an eternal one. +He had fallen desperately in love with Sheila O'Leary as only a man of +Peter's sort can fall in love, once and for all time. Moreover, he +believed in her as a man believes in the best and purest that is likely to +come into his life. On the day of his convalescing, when she had been +transferred from his case to another, he had sworn that he would not stir +foot from the old San until he had won her. He had kept his word for four +months. He would have been content to keep it for four more--or for four +years, for that matter--had everything not turned suddenly topsy-turvy +and sent his world of hopes crashing down about him. + +For four months he had shared as much of Sheila's life and work as she +would allow. He had let himself drift into the rôle of a comfortable and +sympathetic companion whenever her hours for recreation gave him a chance. +His love had grown as his admiration and understanding of her had grown, +until she had come to seem as necessary a part of his life as the air he +breathed. Then he had been able to smile whimsically at those gossipy +tales. What if she had been suspended and sent away from the sanitarium? +What if she had broken through some of the tight-laced rules with which +all institutions of this kind hedge in their nurses? Sheila's proclivity +for breaking rules was a byword among the many who loved her, and the head +of the institution, the superintendent of nurses, the entire staff of +doctors, down to Hennessy, the keeper of the walks and swans, only smiled +and closed their eyes to all of Sheila's backsliding. For hadn't they all +believed in her? And hadn't they sent for her to come back to them again? +And which one of them had ever allowed a word of scandal to pass his +lips? So Peter smiled, too. + +In those months he had come to read Sheila--so he thought--like an open +book. He had learned by heart all her moods, the good and the bad, the +sweet and the bitter. He knew she could be as divinely tender and +compassionate as a celestial mother; he also knew that she could be as +barren of sympathy and as relentless as fate itself. She could pour forth +her whole throbbing soul, impulsive, warm, and radiant, as a true Celt, +yet she could be as impersonal, terse, and cryptic as a marconigram. He +loved these very extremes in her, her unmitigated hatred for the things +she hated, and her unfailing love for the things she loved. She made no +pretense or boast for herself; she was what she was for all the world to +see. And Peter had found her the stanchest, sweetest, most vital--albeit +the most stubborn--piece of womanhood he had ever known. Her very nickname +of "Leerie" was her open letter of introduction to every one; her smile +and the wonder-light in her eyes were her best credentials. Small wonder +it was that her patients watched for her to come and that Peter felt he +could snap his fingers at the scandalmongers. + +But Peter wasn't snapping them now--or smiling. His fists were doubled +tight in his pockets, and he clenched his teeth harder as he paced the +walk from pond to rest-house. How the accursed tongues of the gossips rang +in his head! "Rather odd the sanitarium should have sent for him, wasn't +it? Don't you know he was the young surgeon who was mixed up in that +affair with that popular nurse?"... "Oh yes, they hushed it up and sent +them both away."... "Nothing definite was ever explained, but they were +always together, just as they are now, and you can't get smoke without +some burning."... "Yes, Doctor Brainard and Miss O'Leary. Didn't you ever +hear about what happened three years ago?" + +Peter's stride seemed to measure forth the length of each offending +tongue, and when he reached the end of his beaten track he swung about as +if to meet and silence them all, for all time. But instead he came face to +face with the two who had caused them to wag. So absorbed were the surgeon +and nurse in what they had to say to each other that they brushed by +Peter without seeing him. He might have been one of the rustic posts of +the rest-house or the pine-tree growing close by. As they passed, Peter +scanned narrowly the half-averted face of the girl he loved and found it +pitifully changed in those few days. The luminous light had gone from her +eyes; her lips no longer curved to the gracious, demure smile Peter had +always called "cloistered." They were set to grim determination, as if the +girl had gripped fast to a purpose and no amount of shaking or persuasion +would induce her to let go. Her eyes were circled and anxious. Peter +groaned unconsciously at his glimpse of her, while Hennessy from his +vantage-point on the stump shook a vengeful fist at the retreating back of +the surgeon. + +"A million curses on him!" muttered Hennessy, his lips tight shirred. +"Sure, the lass has the look of a soul possessed." The next instant his +fist was descending not over-mercifully on Peter's back. "First I'm +cursin' him an' then I'm cursin' ye. For the love o' Saint Patrick, are ye +goin' to stand round like a blitherin' fool an' see that rascal of a +docthor do harm again to our lass? I'll come mortial close to wringin' +your neck if ye do." + +Peter glared at his erstwhile friend and fellow-philosopher. "You're the +fool, Hennessy. What under heaven can I do? What could any man do in my +place?" + +"Fight for her. Can't you see the man has her possessed? What an' how +Hennessy hasn't the wits to make out, but ye have. Search out her throuble +same as she searched out yours, an' make her whole an' sweet an' shinin' +again." Hennessy laid two gnarled, brown hands on Peter's shoulder while +he peered up at him with eyes full of appeal. "Ye've heard naught to shake +your faith in the lass? Ye believe in her--aye?" + +"Good God! man, of course I believe in her! I'd believe in her if all the +tongues in the world wagged till doomsday. But what else can I do? Hang +around this old hotbed of gossip and listen and listen, powerless to cram +the truth down their throats because I don't know it?" Peter shot out a +sudden hand and gripped Hennessy's. "For the love of your blessed Saint +Patrick, stand up like a man there, Hennessy, and tell me what was the +truth?" + +For a moment Hennessy's eyes shifted; he whistled his breath in and out in +staccato jerks; then his gaze came back to Peter and he eyed him steadily. +"Son, I'm knowin' no more than when I first saw ye." + +"You believe in her?" + +Hennessy pulled his hand free and shook his fist in Peter's face. "Bad +scran to ye for thinkin' aught else. 'Tis God's truth I'm tellin' ye, Mr. +Peter. I'm knowin' no more than them blitherin' tongues say, but I'd pray +our lass into heaven wi' my dyin' breath if I could." + +Peter smiled. "You'd be doing better to pray her out of this miserable +little purgatory right here. If she belonged to me, Hennessy--" + +"I wish to God she did, sir! But that's what ye can fight for--make her +belong." + +"Easier said than done. Since Doctor Brainard came I can't get her to see +me. Read that!" Peter pulled out of his pocket a tiny folded note and +handed it to the swan-keeper. It was deciphered with much labor and read +with troubled seriousness. + + Dear Mr. Brooks: + + Thank you for the flowers, and the candy, and the many offers of the + car, but I haven't time to enjoy any of these things just now. So + please don't send me any more, or write, or try to see me. I think it + would be better for every one, and far happier in the end for you, if + you would go back to your work as soon as possible. + + Faithfully yours, + + SHEILA O'LEARY. + +Hennessy snorted. "So that's what she thinks, is it? Well, don't ye do it. +'Twas betther advice I gave ye myself; hold fast here an' fight for her. +Mind that!" And with a farewell pull of his forelock Hennessy left him. + +Peter watched him for an instant, then with a new purpose full-born in his +mind he turned and walked swiftly back to the sanitarium. He knew why the +management had sent for Brainard to come back to the San. The head surgeon +had been taken with typhoid; the wards were full of his special operative +cases, and Brainard, who had trained under him, was the most skilful man +available to take his place. But why had they put Sheila O'Leary on as his +surgical nurse? Why had they done this thing that was bound to revive the +old scandal and set tongues wagging anew? Peter knew that upon the answer +to this depended his decision. Would he take Sheila's advice and go, or +Hennessy's advice and fight? + +He went directly to the office of the superintendent of nurses, and, +finding the door well ajar, he entered without knocking. Miss Maxwell was +seated at her desk. Across the desk, with clasped hands, cheeks aflame, +and lips compressed into a look of even greater determination than Peter +had seen there a few minutes before, leaned Sheila O'Leary. + +Peter colored at his unintentional intrusion. "Excuse me," he stammered. +"Not hearing voices, I thought you were alone. I'll come again later, Miss +Maxwell," and he turned toward the door. + +Leerie's voice called him back. "Don't go--want you. Something I was +trying to get Miss Max to promise." + +This time Miss Maxwell colored. "It's against rules, Leerie, to talk over +hospital matters before patients, even as discreet a one as Mr. Brooks." + +"I know--can't help it--need him. Besides, he's his best friend." She +turned to Peter with a strained eagerness. "This will be news to you. +Doctor Dempsy is due here in the morning--taken suddenly--major +operation--nurse just wired. I want you and Miss Max to take him on to the +Dentons if he can stand the trip. Awfully delicate operation, and it's +Doctor John's crack piece of work. Will you do it?" + +The unexpectedness of the news and the request overwhelmed Peter's usually +agile intelligence. He stared blankly at the girl before him. "I don't +think I understand. If Dempsy is coming here for an operation, why should +we take him somewhere else? Why shouldn't he be operated on here if he +wants to be?" + +"He thinks Doctor Jefferson is still operating. He doesn't know--" + +The superintendent of nurses interrupted her. "Leerie, you're overstepping +even your privileges. Doctor Brainard was called here to take charge +because the management had absolute confidence in his skill and knew he +was trustworthy and conscientious. I think there is nothing further that +needs to be said. Doctor Dempsy will do what every other patient has +done, put himself unreservedly into Doctor Brainard's hands." + +"But he mustn't." The crimson had died out of Sheila's cheeks, and she +stood now pale to the very lips, her face working convulsively. "You don't +seem to understand, and it's hard--hard to put it into words. Doctor +Brainard is young--very young for his position and all the responsibility +that has been heaped upon him. His work ever since he came has been +terrific--eight and ten majors a day, Sundays, too. It's been a fearful +strain, and now to make him responsible for a case like Doctor Dempsy, a +case that takes great delicacy and nerve, one that is bound to attack his +sympathy and his reputation at the same time, why--why, it isn't fair. +Can't you see that if he should fail, no matter how blameless he might be, +it would stick to him for the rest of his life, a blot on his work and the +San?" Sheila's hands went out in a last appeal. "Send him to the Dentons; +they've had five years of experience for every year of Doctor Brainard's. +Please, please! Oh, don't you see?" + +"Why should you care so much?" The words were off Peter's tongue before he +knew it. He would have given a good deal if he could have got them back. + +The girl looked from him to Miss Maxwell. The question apparently +bewildered her. Then a hint of her old-time dignity and assurance +returned, coupled with her cryptic mood. "Plenty of reasons: he was Miss +Max's chief--she always worshiped him--your best friend, a most loved and +honored man in the profession. Isn't he? Well, this isn't the time or the +place for a risk." + +The superintendent rose and looked down at the girl. When she spoke there +was a touch of annoyance in the tone as well as sadness. "And that's as +much--and as little--as you expect to tell us?" + +Sheila nodded. + +Miss Maxwell threw up her hands in a little gesture of helplessness. +"Leerie, Leerie, what are we going to do with you? It was this way even +three years ago." + +In a flash the girl's arms were about the superintendent's neck, her face +buried on her shoulder; the words were barely audible to Peter, "Love me +and believe in me--as you did three years ago." And then a choking, +wet-eyed, and rather disheveled figure flew past him, out of the room. + +Miss Maxwell sank back heavily into her chair; her face showed plainly her +battling between love for the girl, her sense of outraged discipline, and +her anxiety over the decision she must make. Peter watched her with a sort +of impersonal sympathy; the major part of his being had been plunged into +what seemed a veritable chasm of hopelessness. He tried to pull himself +together and realize that there was Dempsy to think about. + +"What are you going to do?" he asked, at last. + +"Do? You mean--about--?" + +Peter nodded. + +An almost pathetic smile crept into the superintendent's face. "As long as +you were here, anyway, it's rather a relief to be able to confess that I +don't know what to do. You see, superintendents are always supposed to +have infallible judgment on all matters," she sighed. "I have never but +once known Leerie to break a rule or ask for a special dispensation +without a reason--a good reason. But I don't understand what lies behind +all this." + +"I do." Peter fairly roared it forth. "She loves that man, and she's +afraid this might ruin his career if--if anything happened. Why, it's as +plain as these four walls and the ceiling above us. No woman pleads for a +man that way unless she loves him better than anything else on God's +earth." + +"I think you're wrong." + +"Why?" Peter strode over to the superintendent's desk like a man after his +reprieve. "I'm not just curious. I've the biggest excuse in the world for +wanting to know why she has asked this. I love Sheila O'Leary. I love her +well enough to leave her to-night with the man she loves, provided he +loves her. But if he doesn't--if he's just playing with her, accepting her +as a sop to his vanity, as a lot of near-famous men will with a +woman--then, by thunder! I'm going to stay and fight him for her! +Understand?" And Peter's fist pounded the desk. + +The superintendent smiled again. This time there was no pathos in it. "I +understand--and I'd stay. You ought to know Leerie well enough by this +time to know that she can fight for the right of anything, whether she +cares personally or not, and more than that, even if she has to suffer +for it herself. She's the only woman I have ever known who had that +particular kind of heroism. If she felt Doctor Brainard needed some one to +stand up for him, I believe she could plead better if she didn't care. And +I've another, a better reason for thinking she doesn't love him. She +refused at first to be his surgical nurse. She didn't consent until she +knew that he had made that one of the conditions of his coming here; he +stipulated that he must be allowed to bring his own anesthetist, operate +without an assistant, and choose his own operating nurse." + +"And he choose her?" + +"She is the best we have. Not using an assistant throws a tremendous +responsibility and strain on the nurse, and Doctor Brainard naturally +wanted the most expert one he could get." + +"Then there was nothing personal--" + +"I don't think so. Doctor Brainard has a strong influence over Leerie, but +I believe it is only what any surgeon with distinction and power would +have. If she really cared for Doctor Brainard, she wouldn't have said +what she did when I asked her to take the appointment." + +"What did she say?" Peter leaned forward eagerly and gripped the edge of +the desk. + +"She said she would rather be suspended for three more years than do it, +but if there was no one else, she guessed she could manage it for the +honor of the San." + +"What did she mean?" + +"Oh, that's just a by-phrase among those of us who have worked here a long +while and feel a certain loyalty and responsibility for the ideals of this +institution. We have tried to stand for honest, humane work as against +mere moneygrubbing and popularity." + +"I see. That's why Dempsy sent me here; that's why he's coming himself. +Thank you, Miss Maxwell. I hope you're right." Peter straightened himself +and moved toward the door. + +"Wait a minute, Mr. Brooks. How much do you know of what happened three +years ago?" + +"Just what has dripped from the wagging tongues." Peter smiled ironically. + +"Suppose I tell you the truth of it. It might help you to fight this +thing through. It certainly couldn't hurt your love for Leerie if you +really love her." + +"Nothing could," said Peter, simply. + +"Doctor Brainard and Leerie were the very best of friends during the years +she was training and he was working under Doctor Jefferson. Then I thought +it was love; they were always together, and there seemed to be a strong, +deep sympathy between the two. Just about the time she graduated things +began to go awry. Doctor Brainard was on the verge of a nervous breakdown +and Leerie seemed to be laboring under some bad mental strain. Then the +nurses began to hint that Leerie had been going to his room. One night, +when she was head night nurse in the Surgical and Miss Jacobs was fourth +corridor nurse, Miss Jacobs called me up at two in the morning and told me +Leerie had been in Doctor Brainard's room for an hour. I came at once and +found her there. She made no explanation, offered no excuses. She even +acknowledged that she had been there twice before at the same time." + +"What did Brainard say?" Peter asked it through clenched teeth. + +"Nothing then. But later, when he was called before the Board, he laughed +and asked what a man could say when a nurse chose to come to his room at +two in the morning." + +"The cad!" and Peter swore under his breath. + +"I should have believed in Leerie, anyway, but it was that laugh of Doctor +Brainard's that made me determined to fight for her. What motive Doctor +Brainard had for not defending her I don't know, but he acted like a +scoundrel." + +"But why?" Peter beat the air. "Oh, the girl must have known she couldn't +run amuck with convention that way and not have it hurt her! Why did she +do it?" + +The superintendent of nurses looked long and thoughtfully at him. "Do you +know, Mr. Brooks, if I happened to be the man who loved Sheila O'Leary, I +think I'd find that out as soon as I could. The answer might prove +valuable; it might solve the riddle why Sheila doesn't want Doctor Dempsy +operated on here." + +"Well, is he going to be?" + +"No, we'll take him on to the Dentons if he can be moved again after he +gets here." + +But fate willed otherwise. When Doctor Dempsy arrived on the early train +there were no conflicting opinions as to his condition; it was critical, +and there would have to be an operation within twenty-four hours. Miss +Maxwell brought the news to Peter along with the doctor's wish that his +friend should be with him as long as the powers allowed. + +"Does Leerie know?" asked Peter. + +"She was present at the consultation." + +"What did she say?" + +"Nothing. But she looked very white and drawn. I'm afraid she hasn't slept +much." + +"Good Lord! you don't believe she really thinks Brainard will bungle!" + +But Miss Maxwell cut him short. "This is no time to bother with futile +suppositions. Please, Mr. Brooks! Remember that for all our sakes--Doctor +Dempsy's most of all--this is the time to keep our nerve and think only +one way." With a grave shake of the head she left him at the door of +Doctor Dempsy's room. + +To Peter the day crept on at a snail's pace; to Sheila it galloped. Peter +saw her just once, when, at Doctor Dempsy's urgent wish, she came in for +a moment between operations, muffled to the eyes in her gown and mask. + +"Come here, child." The old doctor held out a commanding hand and drew the +nurse close to the bed. "I've had something on my mind ever since I saw +your face this morning. Might as well say it now before I forget it." He +smiled up gently at the great, deep-gray eyes looking down wistfully at +him. "I imagine that you two youngsters may be fretting some over +to-morrow--seven A.M. Hey? Mean trick to saddle you with the +responsibility of an old, worn-out hulk like mine, with the chances +fifty-fifty on patching it up. What I wanted to say was that you mustn't +take it too hard if I don't patch. 'Pon my soul I sha'n't mind for +myself." + +A voice called from the corridor outside, "Miss O'Leary, Doctor Brainard's +waiting." + +Doctor Dempsy gave the hand inside the rubber glove a tight squeeze. +"Remember, Leerie, I know you'll keep the little old lantern burning for +me as long as you can, and here's good luck, whatever happens." + +She went without a word. Peter had become vastly absorbed at the window +in watching Hennessy sweeping a gathering of leaves from the curb. When +he finally came back to his chair by the bedside he flattered himself that +his expression was beatifically cheerful and his voice perfectly steady. + +As the day waned a storm gathered, and by nightfall the sanitarium and the +surrounding country were in the grip of a full-fledged equinoctial. Doctor +Dempsy was put to bed early, and Peter went back to his room in the main +building to write himself into a state of temporary forgetfulness, if he +could. He had tinkered with his pen, sharpened half a dozen pencils, and +mussed up as many sheets of paper when a knock brought him to his feet. +Sheila O'Leary stood at the door. Her lips were bravely trying to smile +away the haggard lines of the face. + +Unconsciously Peter's arms went out to her as he repeated that old cry of +his in the days when he was a sufferer in the Surgical, "Why--why, it's +Leerie!" and his love seemed to pound through every syllable. + +For the flash of a second the eyes of the girl leaped to his in answer, +but in another flash they seemed to have traveled miles away, looking back +at him with the sadness of a lost angel. "Yes, it's Leerie again--come +for help," she announced, tersely. + +"All right." Peter tried to sound matter-of-fact. + +"Don't ask questions; just do it. Will you?" + +Peter nodded. + +"You said once if you had to, you could drive through any storm, snow, +hail, or rain, that you had ever seen. Yes? Then get your car and take +Doctor Brainard out to-night. Take him anywhere, and keep him going till +he's so tired he's ready to drop. Talk to him, tell him stories, don't let +him talk about himself--or to-morrow. And bring him home when you think he +can sleep." + +"Yes. What are you going to do?" + +"Sleep, I hope." She turned to go, but came back again and laid a cold +hand in Peter's. "Thank you. Don't think I don't appreciate it." + +"Wait a minute. As it happens, I haven't met Doctor Brainard, and there's +a perfectly good chance he may not care about joy-riding in a young +hurricane--even in my company," Peter ended ironically. + +Leerie gave a little hollow laugh. "Oh, he'll go--don't worry. I'll bring +him down and introduce him. Ready in ten minutes?" And this time she was +gone. + +Peter knew if he lived to the ripe old age of Solomon himself he should +never forget the smallest detail of that night--Doctor Brainard's curt, +almost surly greeting, the plunge into the car, and the start. After that +Peter felt like a mythological being piloting the elements. He headed for +a state road, and for miles, neither of them speaking, the car streaked +over what might have been the surface of the river of Lethe, or the strata +of mist lying above Niflheim, for all the feeling of reality and substance +it gave. He had the eery sensation that he might be forced to keep on and +on till the end of the world, like the Flying Dutchman. He wondered what +sin of his own or some one's else he might be expiating. They passed no +living or mechanical thing; they had the road, the night, the storm to +themselves. They might have gone ten miles or thirty before Doctor +Brainard broke the silence. + +"Gad! but you can drive!" + +"Thank you. Like it?" + +"Not exactly. But it's better than thinking." + +"Works the other way with me; this sets me thinking." A sudden, heavier +gust sent the car skidding across the road, and Peter's attention went to +his wheel. Righting it, he went on, "This is the second time in my life +I've felt something controlling me that was stronger than my own will." + +"Nasty feeling. Lucky man if you've only felt it twice. What was it the +first time?" + +"Fear. That's what brought me here." + +Peter felt the eyes of the doctor studying him in the dark. "I heard about +your case. It was Leerie brought you through, too, wasn't it?" + +Quick as a flash Peter turned. For the instant he forgot they were +speeding at a forbidden rate down slippery macadam in a tempest, with his +hand as the only controlling force. He almost dropped his wheel. "Why +'_too_'? Is she pulling you through something?" + +He could hear a heavy intake of breath beside him. Unconsciously he knew +that his companion was no longer sitting limp with relaxed muscles. He +seemed to feel every nerve and fiber in the body of the surgeon growing +tense, which made his careless, inconsequential tone sound the more +strange when he finally spoke: + +"That's an odd question to put to a doctor. I was referring to Leerie's +cases. She's pulled through hundreds of patients, you know; she's famous +for it." + +"Yes, I know," answered Peter. His voice sounded just as careless, but the +hands that gripped the wheel were as taut as steel. + +They swept on for another half-hour, the silence broken by an occasional +yawn from the surgeon. At last Peter slowed down and looked at his watch. +"Eleven-thirty. If we turn now we'll make the San about one. How's that +for bedtime?" + +"Gad! I'm ready now," and the doctor yawned again. + +Peter timed it to a nicety. It was five minutes past one as he dropped +Doctor Brainard at the Surgical, where he roomed. He was just driving off +when Miss Jacobs hurried out of the entrance. + +"Oh, Mr. Brooks, wait a minute, please. Doctor Dempsy isn't resting very +well, and Miss Maxwell left word that if he called for you, you could sit +with him. We can't get him to sleep, and he does want you." + +"All right. I'll leave the car and come back." + +As Peter took his chair again by his friend's bedside his face was set to +as strong a purpose as Sheila O'Leary's had shown that day in the +sanitarium grounds. "Want me to talk, old man?" he asked, quietly. "Maybe +I can yarn you into forty winks. Shall I try?" + +"Wish you would. It's funny how a man can go through this with a thousand +or so patients and it seems like an every-day affair, but when it's +himself--well, there's the rub." And the doctor smiled a bit sheepishly at +his own ungovernable nerves. + +Peter gripped his hand understandingly. "I know. It's the difference +between fiction and autobiography as far as it touches your own sense of +reality. Well, to-night shall we try fiction? Ever since they pulled me +through here, I've had my mind on a yarn with a sanitarium or hospital for +a background and a doctor for a hero. All this atmosphere gets into your +blood. It keeps you guessing until you have to spin a yarn and use up the +material." + +"Anything for copy, hey?" the doctor chuckled. + +"That's about it. Well, my yarn runs about this way." With the skill of an +artist and the sympathy of a humanist--and the suppressed excitement of +one who has something at stake--Peter drew his two principal characters, +the conscientious, sensitive doctor possessed with the constant fear of +that hypothetical case he might lose some day, and the smooth, scheming +man a few years his senior who wanted to get his fellow-practitioner out +of the way and marry the girl they both loved. Peter made the girl as +adorable as a man in love might picture her. + +"For a sixpence I'd wager you had fallen in love yourself." Doctor Dempsy +chuckled again. "I never before knew you to be so keen over feminine +charms." + +"Just more copy," and Peter went on with the tale. "Well, the young chap's +horror and fear kept growing with each new case, and the other chap kept +sneering and suggesting that his nerves weren't fit, and his hand wasn't +steady, and he worked too slowly. He kept it up until he got what he +wanted; the young chap bungled his operation and lost his case." + +"Poor devil! I know just what kind of torment he lived through." Doctor +Dempsy raised himself on an elbow and shook his head at Peter. "A case +like that may be fiction to you, but it's fact to us in the profession. +You have no idea how often a youngster's nerves fail him." + +"Guess I'm getting the idea. But I need your help to finish the yarn. Of +course the hospital couldn't bounce him for losing one case. They would +have to prove first that he wasn't fit, wouldn't they?" + +"They would have to make him out incompetent." + +Peter nodded. Had there been more light in the room Doctor Dempsy might +have been startled at the unprecedented expression of cunning that had +crept into his friend's face. "I'm not up enough in medical matters to +know what I could prove against the young chap to put him out. You'll have +to help me. Just how could his rival oust him?" + +"Accuse him of drugs," came the unhesitating answer. "That's the most +plausible, and it's what plays havoc with young surgeons quicker than +anything else. They feel their nerves going, and they take a hypodermic; +it steadies them until--it gets them. If you can make your villain +convince the staff that drugs are back of the lost case, you can get your +poor devil of a surgeon permanently disposed of." + +Peter let out a long-drawn breath. "Thank you, Doc. You've helped me +out--considerably." + +It does not in the least matter how Peter finished the tale. Before the +inevitable conclusion Doctor Dempsy dropped off to sleep, and no one but +Peter himself heard the final, "And they married and lived happy ever +after. By Jupiter they did!" + +He slipped softly out of the room and stood a moment in the corridor, +wondering what he would do next. Sleep seemed unnecessary just then, as +well as undesirable. And as he stood there, innocent of all intention of +eavesdropping, he had that rare experience of hearing history repeat +itself. From around the bend of the corridor, out of sight, came the low +but distinct whisper of the night nurse's voice at the house 'phone. + +"Miss Maxwell, Miss Maxwell, can you hear me? This is Miss Jacobs. Leerie +went to Doctor Brainard's room a half-hour ago. She's still there.... All +right." And then the soft click of the receiver dropping into place. + +Peter stiffened; his hands clenched. His first impulse was to creep 'round +and quietly choke the tattle-tale breath out of Miss Jacobs. He knew how +the little green-eyed nurse was gloating over this second incrimination of +Leerie. But there was something more compelling to do first, something +that could not wait. He slipped 'round through the supply-room and down +the back stairs. He reached the first floor of the Surgical just as the +superintendent of nurses appeared in the entrance. + +"You!" demanded Miss Maxwell. + +"No one else," agreed Peter. "Suppose we go up together." + +Peter could have almost laughed at the look of dumfounded amazement on the +superintendent's face. "You mean--Why, that's impossible! It isn't your +place--" + +Peter cut her short. "Oh yes, it is. Remember the advice you gave me a few +hours ago. I'm here to find out what's back of it all, and no one is +going to stop me." His jaws snapped with an ominous finality. + +Doctor Brainard opened to their knock, but he held the door so that barely +a corner of the room was visible, and he blocked the entrance. + +"Open it wider!" commanded Peter. "We've come to stay a few minutes and +ask Miss O'Leary a few questions," and he thrust the surgeon quickly aside +and flung wide the door. + +Sheila was sitting by a reading-lamp, an open book on her lap. She looked +as Peter had seen her in the early evening, only back of the tiredness and +pallor was a strange look of peace. To Peter she seemed a crucified saint +who had suddenly discovered that nail wounds were harmless. She smiled +faintly at them both. "I'm sorry it's happened again, Miss Maxwell. If +you'll just go away and try to forget about it until after the morning, +I'll send in my resignation and leave as soon as you can fill my place. +And can't we do it this time without any Board meeting? I'll promise never +to come back." + +"Then there are going to be no explanations this time--either?" There was +pleading in the superintendent's voice, as well as infinite sadness. + +The girl shook her head. "There's nothing to explain. I'm just here." She +folded her hands quietly on her lap. "Won't you please go?" + +"No, we won't!" Peter thundered it forth. Then he turned to the surgeon, +and there was no pleading in his voice. "You cur! you cad! What have you +got to say?" + +Doctor Brainard jumped as if Peter had struck him; for the instant he +seemed to find speech difficult. "Why--why, what do you mean? How dare +you--" + +"I dare you," and Peter shot out each word with the directness of a +hand-grenade, "I dare you to stand up like a man and tell why Miss O'Leary +came here to-night. You sneaked behind her silence three years ago; don't +be a cursed coward and do it again." + +The surgeon laughed a dry, unpleasant laugh. "It's easy to call another +man names--but it doesn't mean anything. And what right have you to ask me +to betray Miss O'Leary's silence?" + +"Betray!" Peter fairly howled back the word at him. "Take off your coat. +Take it off, or I'll rip it off. Now roll up your sleeves--no, your left. +There, by Jupiter! Look, Miss Maxwell!" + +Peter's demand was unnecessary. The eyes of the superintendent were +already fixed on the manifold tiny blue discolorations in the surgeon's +bare arm. "Cocaine." She almost whispered it under her breath, and then +louder, "How long?" + +"Four years, about." The surgeon's voice was quite toneless; he seemed to +shrink and grow old while they watched him. + +Miss Maxwell looked across at the girl, who was leaning forward, her face +in her hands, crying softly. Her eyes were bitterly accusing, and there +was abundant scorn in her voice when she spoke again to the surgeon. "So +Leerie has been shielding you all along and helping you to fight it. How +did she know?" + +"I told her. I thought if some one with a courage and trust like hers knew +about it it might pull me together. God! I wish I'd killed myself three +years ago." + +"Pity you didn't!" There was no mercy in Peter's voice. "But I suppose she +wouldn't let you; I suppose she held you together then as she's trying to +now. She's trying to save you for to-morrow--seven A.M.--and all the +to-morrows coming after. I--I think I'm beginning to understand." His arms +dropped dejectedly to his sides. For Peter there could be but one meaning +to Sheila's sacrifice and struggle. + +But Miss Maxwell was holding fast to her cross-examination. "And I suppose +you promised Leerie three years ago if she'd keep silent you would fight +it through and break the habit. And that's why you've let no one but +Leerie and Miss Jacobs in the operating-room, so no one else would guess. +Did Miss Jacobs find out three years ago?" + +Doctor Brainard nodded. + +Words failed the superintendent, but her expression boded ill for the +little green-eyed nurse. "Well," she said, at length, "there's only one +thing that matters right now--are you or are you not going to be in a fit +condition to operate to-morrow?" + +It was Leerie who answered. She was out of her chair at a bound and beside +the surgeon, her hand on his arm. "He's going to operate; he's got to. +There isn't another skilled hand like his nearer than the Dentons, so +he's got to bring Doctor Dempsy through. Please, Miss Maxwell, leave him +to me. I can manage. He's got four hours to sleep, and then I'll let him +have enough cocaine to steady him. Won't you trust me?" + +"It's about the only way now." + +Peter left unnoticed. He realized, as he had realized in the sanitarium +grounds that afternoon, that he counted about as much in this crisis as a +part of the inanimate surroundings. Miss Maxwell joined him a moment +later, looking outrageously relieved. She flashed Peter an apologetic +smile. + +"I know it's shameless of me to look glad when you look so miserable. But +I can't help feeling that we are going to win. Leerie deserves it after +what she's suffered for him. That man couldn't fail her, and her trust is +bound to make good. Don't you see?" + +Peter's shoulders gave an unconvincing shrug. "I hope so. He ought to--if +he's half-way a man." He looked at his watch. "Almost morning now. Guess +I'll pack my things and be ready to start as soon as I know Dempsy's all +right." + +Miss Maxwell held him back for an instant. "I know you're thinking that +all's wrong with the world, but I know all's right. Go and pack if you +must, but please stay in your room until I send you word. Promise?" + +And not caring, Peter promised. + +From seven o'clock on Peter paced the room among his packed luggage and +counted the minutes. He wondered how long his patience would last and when +his misery would stop growing. The burden of both had become unbearable. +At eight-thirty a sharp knock sounded and he sprang to the door. On the +threshold stood a nurse in surgical wrappings, with eyes that shone like a +whole firmament of stars and a mouth that curved to the gentle demureness +of a nun. Peter stood and stared at this unexpected apparition of the old +Leerie. + +"Well," said the apparition, smiling radiantly as of old, "I'm a messenger +of glad tidings. Won't you ask me to come in?" + +Peter flushed and drew her to a chair. + +"Oh, it was a wonderful operation. It seemed almost like performing a +miracle, and that blessed old doctor is coming out of the ether like a +baby." + +"Maybe it was a miracle--the miracle of a woman's trust." + +A look of rare tenderness swept into the girl's face. "Thank you. I wonder +if you know how often you say the kindest and most comforting thing." Then +she sobered. "He's made a brave fight, and it wasn't easy to pull himself +together, in the face of what he knew you were all thinking of him, and do +such a tremendous piece of work. I want you to understand. He's a +brilliant surgeon; it didn't seem right that he should be lost to himself +and the profession. And the best of it is, he isn't going to be. The San +is going to stand by him; every doctor on the staff is willing to help +him. As soon as Doctor Jefferson is back, Doctor Brainard is to stop work +until--until he's fit again. Isn't that splendid! Oh, I could sing! I keep +saying over those great Hebrew words of comfort, 'Weeping may tarry +through the night, but joy cometh in the morning.'" + +"Yes," said Peter, dully. "I'm glad joy has come for you. May I wish you +and Doctor Brainard all success and happiness?" + +Sheila's eyes looked into Peter's with a sudden intensity. "You may--but +not together. Have you actually been thinking that I loved Doctor +Brainard?" A hint of the old bitterness crept into her voice. "I can pity +a man like that, but love him--love weakness and selfishness--and the +willingness to betray a woman's honor--no! Three years ago he killed +whatever personal feeling I might have had for him, and he made me hate +all men." + +"And you're still hating them?" Peter held fast to his rising hopes while +he hung eagerly on her answer. + +"No. Ever since a fine, strong, unselfish man came into my life it has set +me loving all mankind so scandalously that I'm afraid the only way to make +me respectable is--for some man to marry me." Leerie's arms went out to +Peter in complete surrender. "Oh, Peter--Peter--it's morning!" + +But it was almost noon before Peter began to think intelligently again, +and then he remembered something, something that ought to be done. "I +think," he said, "I think we ought to go out and tell Hennessy and the +swans; we sort of owe it to them." + +And it all ended even as Peter had prophesied in his yarn by Doctor +Dempsy's bedside. + + + + +Chapter V + +THE LAST OF THE SURGICAL + + +Things have a way of beginning casually, so casually that you think they +are bound to spin themselves out into airy nothings. The first inkling you +have to the contrary is that headlong plunge into one of the big moments +of your life, perhaps the biggest. But you never cease to wonder at the +innocent, inconsequential way it began. These are the moments when you can +picture Fate, sitting like an omnipotent operator before some giant +switchboard, playing with signals and the like. I dare say he grins like a +mischievous little boy who delights in turning things topsy-turvy whenever +he has a chance. + +Fate had been busy at this for some time when the sanitarium, quite +oblivious of any signal connection, set itself to the glorious business of +getting Sheila O'Leary married. Grief, despair, disappointment came often +to the San, death not infrequently, but happiness rarely, and there had +never before been such a joyous, personal happiness as this one. Small +wonder that the San should gather it close to its heart and gloat over it! +Was not Sheila one of its very own, born under its portals, trained in its +school, placed above all its nurses, and loved beyond all else? And Peter +Brooks. Had not the San given him his life and Sheila? It certainly was a +time for rejoicing. As Hennessy had voiced it: + +"Sure, half the weddin's ye go to ye sit miserable, thinkin' the man isn't +good enough for the lass, or the lass is no mate for the man. But, glory +be to Pether! here's a weddin' at last that God Almighty might be cryin' +the banns for." + +They were to be married within the month. Every one was agreed to this, +from the superintendent down to Flanders, the bus-driver--yes, and even +the lovers themselves. The San forgot its aches and sorrows in the +excitement of planning an early summer wedding. + +"We'll make the chapel look lovely," chirped the Reverend Mrs. Grumble, +clasping and unclasping her hands in a fidget of anticipation. "There'll +be enough roses and madonna lilies in the gardens to bank every pew and +make an arch over the chancel." + +"Well, if Leerie's married in the chapel, half of us can't get in." And +Madam Courot shook her head in emphatic disapproval. "She'd better take +the Congregational church. That's the only place large enough to hold +everybody who will want to come." + +A mutinous murmur rose and circled the patients on the veranda. Not +married at the San! It was unthinkable. So this point and the final date +Sheila settled for them. + +"We'll have the wedding in the gardens, save all the fuss and waste of +picking the flowers, be ever so much prettier, and everybody and his +neighbor can come." + +When Hennessy heard of it he shirred his mouth into a pucker and whistled +ecstatically. "'Tis like her, just! Married out-o'-doors wi' the growin' +things to stand up wi' her and the blessed sun on her head. Faith, +Hennessy will have to be scrubbin' up the swans an' puttin' white satin +bows round their necks." + +Sheila chose the hour before sunset on an early day of June, and the San +speedily set itself to the task of praying off the rain and arranging the +delightful details of attendants, refreshments, music, and all the other +non-essentials of a successful wedding. Miss Maxwell, the superintendent +of nurses, took the trousseau in hand and portioned out piles of napery +and underwear to the eager hands of the nurses to embroider. The whole +sanitarium was suddenly metamorphosed into a Dorcas Society; patients +forgot to be querulous, and refused extra rubbings and all unnecessary +tending, that more stitches might be taken in the twenty-four hours of the +hospital day. A great rivalry sprang up between the day and night nurses +as to which group would finish the most, and old Mr. Crotchets, the +cynical bachelor with liver complaint and a supposedly atrophied heart, +offered to the winning shift the biggest box of candy New York could put +up. + +Through the first days of her happiness Sheila walked like a lambent being +of another world, whose radiance was almost blinding. Those who had known +her best, who had felt her warmth and beauty in spite of that bitterness +which had been her shield against the hurt she had battled with so long, +looked upon her now with unfathomable wonder. And Peter, who had worshiped +her from the moment she had taken his hand and led him back to the ways of +health, watched her as the men of olden times must have watched the +goddesses that occasionally graced their earth. + +"Beloved, you're almost too wonderful for an every-day, Sunday-edition +newspaper-man like me," Peter whispered to her in the hush of one +twilight, as they sat together in the rest-house, watching Hennessy feed +the swans. + +"Every woman is, when the miracle of her life has been wrought for her. +Man of mine," and Sheila reached out to Peter's ever waiting arms, +"wouldn't God be niggardly not to let me seem beautiful to you now?" + +Peter laughed softly. "If you're beautiful now, what will you be when--" + +Sheila hushed him. "Listen, Peter, our happiness frightens me, it's so +tremendous for just two people--almost more than our share of life. I know +I seem foolish, but long ago I made up my mind I should have to do +without love and all that goes with it, and now that it has come--sorrow, +death, never frightened me, but this does." + +"Glad I have the courage for two, then. Look here, Leerie, the more +happiness we have the more we can spill over into other lives and the +brighter you can burn your lamp for the ones in the dark. This old world +needs all the happiness it can get now. So?" + +Sheila smiled, satisfied. "You always understand. If I ever write out a +prescription for love, I shall make understanding one-third of the dose. +Let's go into partnership, Brooks and O'Leary, Distillers and Dispensers +of Happiness." + +"All right, but the firm's wrong. It's going to be Brooks and Brooks," and +Peter kissed her. + +"There is one thing," and Sheila gently disentangled herself. "There are +days and days before the wedding, and if everybody thinks I am going to do +nothing until then, everybody is very much mistaken. I'm going in this +minute to sign up for my last case in the Surgical." + +It must have been just at this moment that Fate turned on an arbitrary +signal-light and changed a switch. I should like to think that back of his +grin lurked a tiny shadow of contrition. + +"And what am I going to do?" Peter called dolefully after her. + +"Oh, I don't know. You might write an article on the dangers and +uncertainties of marrying any woman in a profession." And she blew him a +farewell kiss. + +The train from the city, that night, brought a handful of patients, and +one of these wore the uniform and insignia of a lieutenant of the +Engineers. His mother came with him. She had been an old patient, and +because of extraordinary circumstances--I use the government term--she had +obtained his discharge from a military hospital and had brought him to the +San to mend. + +"The wounds are slow in closing, and there's some nervous trouble," Miss +Maxwell explained to Sheila. "The boy's face is rather tragic. Will you +take the case?" + +She accepted with her usual curt nod and a hasty departure for her +uniform. A half-hour later she was back in the Surgical, her fear as well +as her happiness forgotten in the call of another human being in distress. +The superintendent of nurses was right: the boy's face was tragic, and a +frail little mother hovered over him as if she would breathe into his +lungs the last breath from her own. She looked up wistfully, a little +fearsomely, as Sheila entered; then a smile of thanksgiving swept her face +like a flash of sunlight. + +"Oh, I'm so glad! I remember you well. I hoped--but it hardly seemed +possible--I didn't dare really to expect it. When I was here before, you +were always so needed, and my boy--of course there is nothing +serious--only--" and the shaking voice ended as incoherently as it had +begun. + +The nurse took the withered hands held out to her in her young, warm ones. +In an instant she saw all that the little mother had been through--the +renunciation months before when she had given her boy up to his country; +the long, weary weeks of learning to do without him; the schooling it had +taken to grow patient, waiting for the letters that came sparingly or not +at all; and at last the news that he was at the front, under fire, when +the papers published all the news there was to be told. Sheila saw it +all, even to her blind, frantic groping for the God she had only half +known and into whose hands she had never wholly given the keeping of her +loved ones. And after that the cable and the waiting for what was left of +her boy to come home to her. As she looked down at her, Sheila had the +strange feeling that this frail little mother was dividing the care of her +boy between God and herself, and she smiled unconsciously at this new +partnership. + +Gently she laid her hand on the lean, brown one resting on the coverlet; +the boy opened his eyes. "It's going to be fine to have a soldier for a +patient; I expect you know how to obey orders. You are our first, and +we're going to make your getting well just the happiest time in all your +life, the little mother and I." + +The boy made no response. He looked at his mother as if he understood, and +then with a groan of utter misery he turned away his head and closed his +eyes again. "Ah-h-h!" thought Sheila, and a little later she drew the +mother into the corridor beyond earshot. + +"There's something ailing him besides wounds. What is it?" + +"Clarisse." The promptness of the answer brought considerable relief to +the nurse. It was easy to deal with the things one knew; it was the hidden +things, tucked away in the corners of the subconscious mind or the +super-sensitive soul, that never saw the light of open confession, that +were the baffling obstacles to nursing. Sheila never dreaded what she +knew. + +"Well, what's the matter with Clarisse?" she asked, cheerfully. + +The little mother hesitated. Evidently it was hard to put it into words. +"They're engaged, she and Phil, and Phil doesn't want to see her, shrinks +from the very thought of it. That's what's keeping him from getting +better, I think. She's very young and oh, so pretty. They were both young +when Phil went away--but Phil--" She stopped and passed a fluttering hand +across her forehead; her lips quivered the barest bit. "Phil has come back +so old. That's what war does for our boys; in just a few months it turns +them into old men, the serious ones--and their eyes are older than any +living person's I ever saw." + +"And Clarisse is still young. I think I understand." + +"That's why I brought him here. In the city there would have been no +reason for her not coming to the hospital, but she couldn't come here +unless we sent for her--could she?" Again the fluttering hand groped as if +to untangle the complexity of thoughts and feelings in the poor confused +head. "I write her letters. I make them just as pleasant as I can. I don't +want to hurt her; she's so young." + +Sheila nodded. "Does he love her?" That was the most important, for to +Sheila love was the key that could spring the lock of every barrier. + +"He did, and I think she loves him--I think--" + +Sheila went back to her patient and began the welding of a comradeship +that only such a woman can weld when her heart is full with love for +another man. Day by day she made him talk more. He told her of his +soldiering; apparently everything that had happened before held little or +no place in his scheme of life, and he told it as simply and directly as +if he had been a child. He made her see the months of training in camp, +when he grew to know his company and feel for the first time what the +brotherhood of arms meant. He told of the excitement of departure, the +spiritual thrill of marching forth to war with the heart of a crusader in +every boy's breast. His eyes shone when he spoke of their renunciation, of +the glory of putting behind them home and love until the world should be +made clean again and fit for happiness. + +Sheila winced at this, but the boy did not notice; he was too absorbed in +the things he had to tell. + +He told of the days of waiting in France, with the battle-front before +them like a mammoth drop-curtain, screening the biggest drama their lives +would ever know. "There we were, marking time with the big guns, wondering +if our turn would come next. That was a glorious feeling, worth all that +came afterward--when the curtain went up for us." + +He raised himself on an elbow and looked into Sheila's cool, gray eyes +with eyes that burned of battle. "God! I can't tell you about it. There +have been millions of war books written by men who have seen more than I +have and who have the trick of words--and you've probably read them; you +know. Only reading isn't seeing it; it isn't _living it_." He turned +quickly, shooting out a hand and gripping hers hard. "Tell me; you've seen +all sorts of operations--horrible ones, where they take out great pieces +of malignant stuff that is eating the life out of a man. You've seen +that?" + +The nurse nodded. + +"Did you forget it afterward, when the body was clean and whole again? +Could you forget the thing that had been there? For that's war. That's +what we're fighting, the thing that's eating into the heart of a decent, +sound world, and since I've seen the horror of it I can't forget. I can't +see the healing--yet." + +"You will. Not at first, perhaps, but when you're stronger. That is one of +God's blessed plans: He made beauty to be immortal and ugliness to die and +be forgotten. And even the scars where ugliness was time whitens and +obliterates. Give time its chance." + +It was the next day that the boy spoke of Clarisse. "Will time make them +all right, too? Leerie," he had picked up the nickname from the other +nurses and appropriated it with all the ardent affection of worshiping +youth, "we're miles--ages--apart. Can anything under God's canopy bring us +together, I wonder?" + +"Perhaps." Sheila smiled her old inscrutable smile. "Tell me more." + +And so he told her of the girl who was so young, and oh, so pretty. It had +all seemed right before he had gone to camp; it was the great love for +him, something that had made his going seem the worthier. But at camp the +distance between them had begun to widen, her letters had failed to bridge +it, and through those letters he had discovered a new angle of her, an +angle so acute that it had cut straight to the heart and destroyed all the +love that had been there. At least that was what he thought. + +"I knew she was young, of course, not much more than a child, and I knew +she loved fun and good times, and all that, but--Why, she'd write about +week-end parties, and how becoming her bathing-suit was, and what Tommy +Flint said about her fox-trotting. Lord!" He writhed under the coverlet +and ground his nails into his palms. "We marched through places where +there wasn't a shred of anything left for anybody. We saw old women +hanging on to broken platters and empty bird-cages because it was all they +had left--home, children, everything gone. And on top of that would come a +letter telling how much she'd spent on an evening gown, and how Bob Wylie +took them out to Riverdale and blew in a hundred and twenty dollars on the +day's trip. A hundred and twenty dollars! That would have bought a young +ocean of milk over there for the refugee kids I saw starving." + +He jerked himself up suddenly and sat huddled over, his eyes kindling with +a vision of purging the world. Sheila knew it was useless to stop him, so +she propped him up with pillows and let him go on. + +"And that wasn't all. Between the lulls in the fighting they moved us +along to a quiet sector, to freshen up, where we were so close to the +German side that we could look into one of their captured villages. There +we could see the French girls they'd carried off going out to work, saw +them corralled at night like--" He broke off, hesitated, then went +doggedly on. "With field-glasses we could see them plainly, the loads +they had to lift and carry, the beatings they got, the look in their +faces. Their shoulders were crooked, their backs bent from the long +slaving. They were wraiths, most of them--and some with babies at their +breasts. After I got back from seeing that, I found another letter from +Clarisse. She said the girls just couldn't buckle down to much Red Cross +work; it was so hard to do anything much in summer. They'd no sooner get +started than some one would say tennis or a swim. _And I saw women dying +over there--and bearing Boche babies!_" + +All the agony of soul that youth can compass was poured forth in those +last words. The boy leaned back on his pillows, weary unto death with the +hopelessness of it all. So Sheila let him lie for a while before she +answered him. + +"Do the boys want their girls to know the full horror of it all? I thought +that was one of the things you were fighting for, to keep as much of it +away from them as you could." + +The boy raised a hand in protest, but Sheila silenced him. "Wait a minute; +it's my turn to talk now. I know what's in your mind. You think that +Clarisse--and the girls like her--are showing unforgivable callousness +and flippancy in the face of this world tragedy. Instead of becoming women +as you have become men, they stay silly, unthinking, irresponsible +creatures who dance and play and laugh while you fight and die. The +contrast is too colossal; it all seems past remedy. Isn't that so? Well, +there's another side, a side you haven't thought of. The girls are giving +you up. The little they know of life, as it is now, looks very +overwhelming to them. Perhaps it frightens them. And what do frightened +children do in the dark?" + +The boy did not try to answer; he waited, tensely eager. + +"Why, they sing; they laugh little short-breathed laughs; they tell +stories to themselves of nonsensical things to reassure them. All the time +they are trying not to think of what terrors the dark may hold; they are +trying not to cry out for some one to come and sit with them. Some of our +girls are doing a tremendous work. They meet trains at all hours of the +day or night and feed the boys before they sail; they wait all day in the +canteens until they're ready to drop; they put in a lot more time, making +comfort-kits, knitting, and rolling bandages, than they ever own to. And +suppose they don't grow dreadfully serious; isn't it better that way? The +girls are doing their bit as fast as they are learning how. It isn't fair +of the boys to judge them too soon. It isn't fair of you to judge your +Clarisse without giving her a chance." + +"You didn't read those letters." + +"Letters! Most of us, when we write, keep back the things that really +matter and skim off the surface of our lives to tell about. There may not +be the sixteenth part of your girl in those letters." + +The boy's lips tightened stubbornly. "It wasn't just one--it was all of +them. Anyhow, I haven't the nerve or the heart to find out." + +Again Sheila let the silence fall between them. When she spoke, her voice +was very tender. "Tell me, boy, what made you love her?" + +He smiled sheepishly. "Oh, I don't know. She was always a good sport, +never got grumpy over things that happened, never got cold feet, either. +She had a way of teasing you to do what she wanted, would do anything to +get her way; and then she'd turn about so quickly and give you your way, +after all--just make you take it. And she'd be so awfully sweet about it, +too. And she'd always play fair, and she had a way of making you feel the +best ever. Oh, I don't know--" The boy looked about him helplessly. "They +sound awfully foolish reasons for loving a girl." + +Sheila's face had become suddenly radiant; her eyes sparkled like +rushlights in a wind. They actually startled the boy so that he +straightened up in bed again and gripped her hand. "I say, Leerie, what is +it? I never saw you look like this before. You're--Are you in love?" + +"With one of the finest men God ever made. He's so fine that he trusted me +through a terrible bungle--believed in the real woman in me when I would +have denied it. That's what a man's love can do for a woman sometimes, +keep her true to the best in her." + +That night, after many fluttering protests, the little mother wrote a +letter to Clarisse. It was dictated by Sheila and posted by her, and it +contained little information except what might have been extracted from a +non-committal railroad guide. It did mention at the last, however, that +Phil was slowly gaining. + +With this off her mind, Sheila went to find Peter. She had +characteristically neglected him since she had been on the case, and as +characteristically he made no protest. Instead he met her with that quick +understanding that she had claimed as one of love's ingredients. He looked +her over well and proudly, then tapped his head significantly. + +"I see, there's more to this soldier-boy case than just wounds. Want me to +run you down the boulevard while you work it out?" + +"Thank God for a man!" breathed Sheila, and then aloud: "No, it's worked +out. But you might run me down, just the same." + +"Feels almost like frost to-night," said Peter as he put the car into +first. "Do you think it will hold pleasant enough for--" + +"For what?" Sheila's tone sounded blank. + +Peter chuckled. "For the gardens and the old ladies, of course. Have you +by any chance forgotten that there's going to be a wedding in four days?" + +"Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday--" counted Sheila. "Why, so it is!" +Then she echoed Peter's chuckle, "Oh yes, there's going to be a wedding, a +beautiful wedding in four days." + +A strange little twinge took Peter's heart there in the dark at the queer, +impersonal note in what she had said. What did it mean? + +Sheila gave the girl twenty-four hours to reach the San after receiving +the letter; she came in eighteen, and the nurse rejoiced at this good +omen. She had delegated Peter to meet all trains that day, take the girl +to her room, send for her at once, and tell nobody. Peter obeyed, and +early in the afternoon Sheila looked up from her reading to the boy to see +Peter standing in the doorway, the message on his lips. + +"Baggage delivered," was Peter's announcement. + +"Thank you. I'll come in a minute and see if my key fits." She hunted up +the little mother, left her in charge, and hurried over to the nurses' +home. + +There in the big living-hall, perched in a wicker chair under the poster +of Old King Cole, Sheila found the girl, who was young and oh, so pretty. +She looked about as capable of taking a plunge into the grim depths of +life and coming out safely as a toy Pom of weathering the waters of the +Devil's Hole. "How shall I ever push her in?" thought Sheila as she held +out her hand in greeting. + +Clarisse took it with all the hectic impulsiveness of youth. "You're his +nurse. Isn't it great his coming back this way? All our set is engaged--or +about to be--but I'm the only one that's got her man back with battle +scars all over him. Makes me feel like a story-book heroine." + +Sheila O'Leary didn't know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. She ended +by doing what probably surprised her more than it did the girl. She sat +down in the wicker chair herself and gathered the girl into her lap. "Oh, +you blessed, blessed baby!" she crooned softly. + +The girl pouted adorably. It was very evident that she liked to be petted, +coaxed, and spoiled. If there was a woman slumbering under all this +dimpling, infantile charm, she was quite indiscernible to the woman who +held her. + +Slowly she bent over the girl and let her face show all the delight she +could feel in her prettiness and baby ways. There must be sympathy between +them or her task would be hopeless. "There, let me untie that bewitching +bonnet of yours and take off your gloves. We have a lot to tell each other +before you see your soldier." + +"But Phil--won't he be waiting, wondering why I don't come? Oh, I'm just +crazy to see him!" + +"He doesn't know you're here yet." + +"Oh!" The smooth, white forehead did its utmost to manage a frown. "Why, +didn't he send for me?" + +"No." + +"Who did? His mother wrote." + +"I sent." + +The round, childish eyes filled with apprehension; she wrenched herself +free of Sheila's arms. "He isn't going to--The letter said--?" + +"He's better. Sit down, dear. That's what we have to talk over. His body +is mending fast, but his mind--well, his mind has been taken prisoner." + +Clarisse tossed an adorable crown of golden curls. "I don't understand." + +"Didn't expect you to, at first. It's this way. He's been through some +very big, very terrible experiences, and he can't forget them. He isn't +the boy you used to play with, the boy who was happy just having a good +time. He's grown very serious. That's what experience is likely to do for +us all in time, but with him it's come all in a heap. When that happens +you can't go back and be happy in the old way. Do you see?" + +"Go on." + +"He's bound fast and walled about with the memories of what he has been +through--killing human beings, watching his comrades die, seeing what the +Germans have done. For the moment it has made him forget that the sun +shines and birds sing and the world is a place to be glad in. The bright +colors have faded out of life for him; everything looks gray and somber." + +"Gee! and how he used to like a good cabaret with a jazz band!" The girl +whispered it, and there was awe in her voice. "And colors! I had to wear +the gayest things I had, to please him." + +"Yes, I know. And he'll like them best again, some day. Just be patient, +dear. And the waiting won't be hard, you'll have so much to do for him. +You'll have to be bringing the sunshine back, making him listen to the +bird-songs, teaching him how to be glad, to love doing all the happy, +foolish boy-things he used to like." + +"I see--I can." The girl's voice was breathless. + +"I'm sure you can." Sheila tried to put conviction into her words. "At +first you may find it a little hard. It means--" + +"Yes?" + +"It means creeping into his prison with him, so gently, so lovingly, and +staying close beside him while you cut the memory-cords one by one. Could +you do that?" + +The girl sprang past Sheila toward the door. "Come! What are we waiting +for?" + +"But he doesn't know you are here yet," parried the nurse. + +"Let's go and tell him, then. He always adored surprises." The dimples in +her cheeks danced in anticipation while she took Sheila's hand and tried +to drag her nearer the door. But at the threshold something in the woman's +face stopped her. She hesitated. "Maybe--maybe he doesn't like surprises +any more." Again the impulsive hands were thrust into the nurse's. "Tell +me, tell me honestly--You said you sent for me. Was it--Didn't he want +me--to come?" + +And Sheila, remembering what the boy had loved about her, gave her back +the truth: "No, he has grown afraid of you. That's another thing you will +have to bring back to him with the songs and the sunlight--his love for +you." + +Her hand was flung aside and the girl flew past her, back to the wicker +chair under Old King Cole. Burying her head in her arms, she burst into +uncontrollable sobs, while Sheila stood motionless in the doorway and +waited. She must have waited an hour before the girl raised her eyes, wet +as her own. For Sheila knew that a woman's soul was being born into the +world, and none understood better than she what the agony of travail meant +to the child who was giving it birth. + +"Come," said Sheila, gently. + +The girl rose uncertainly; all the divine assurance of youth was gone. "I +think I see," she began unsteadily. "I think I can." + +"I know you can." And this time there was no doubt in Sheila's heart. + +She saw to it that the little mother had been called away before they +reached the Surgical, so that the room was empty except for the occupant +of the cot. "Hello, boy!" she called, triumphantly, from the doorway. "I +have brought you the best present a soldier ever had," and she pushed +Clarisse into the room and closed the door. + +For a moment those two young creatures looked at each other, overcome with +confusion and the self-consciousness of their own great change. + +The boy spoke first. "Clare!" + +"Phil!" It came in a breathless little cry, like a bird's answer to its +mate. Then the girl followed. Across the room she flew, to the bed, and +down on her knees, hiding her face deep in the folds of coverlet and +hospital shirt. Words came forth chokingly at last, like bubbles of air +rising slowly to the surface. + +"Those letters--those awful letters! Just foolish things that didn't +matter. One of the boys at the canteen--I used to wait on the table and +make believe every soldier I served was mine, and I always wore my +prettiest clothes--he said--the boy--that over there they didn't want +anything but light stuff--those were his words--said a chap couldn't stand +hearing that his girl was lonely.... He said to cut out all the blue funks +and the worries; the light stuff helped to steady a chap's nerve. So I--" + +And then the boy lied like a soldier. "Don't, Clare darling. I knew all +along you were playing off like a good sport. And it helped a lot. Gee! +how it helped!" + +When Sheila looked in, hours later, the girl was still by the bed, her +cheek on the pillow beside the boy's. + +It was a strangely illusive Leerie that met Peter that night in the +rest-house after the ailing part of the San had been put safely to bed. +Her eyes seemed to transcend the stars, and her face might have served for +a young neophyte. As Peter saw, for the first time he glimpsed the signal +Fate had been playing with so many days. + +"What's happened? Anything wrong with those cubs?" + +"Nothing. They're as right as right can be." Then with the old directness +Sheila plunged headlong into the thing she knew must be done. "Man of +mine, I'm going to hurt you. Can you forgive and still understand?" + +"I can try." Peter did his best to keep his voice from sounding too heavy, +for a fear was gripping at his heart, and his eyes sought Sheila's face, +pleading as he would never have let his lips plead. + +Sheila covered her eyes. She didn't want to see. It was too reminiscent of +the little boy lying awake in a dark attic, afraid of sleep. "We have both +done without happiness so long, don't you think we can do without it a +little longer?" + +"I suppose so--if we must." Peter's voice was very dull. "But why? I've +always had an idea that happiness was something like opportunity; it had +to be snatched and held fast when it came your way, or you might never +have another chance at it." Had Sheila brought him to the gates of +Paradise only to bar them against his entering? he wondered. + +The woman who loved him understood and laid her hand on his breast as if +she would stay the hurt there if she could. "It may make it easier if you +know that the giving up is going to be hard for me, too. I've thought +about that home of ours so long that I've begun to see it and all that +goes with it. I even stumble upon it in my dreams. It's always at the end +of a long, tired road, going uphill. If I thought I should have to give it +up, I wouldn't have the courage to do what I'm going to now." + +She sat down on the bench, laid her arms over the sill of the rustic +window, and looked toward the pond. The night was very still; the blurred +outlines of the swans, huddled against the bank, were the only signs of +life. When she spoke it was almost to herself. + +"When they sent me away from the San three years ago I thought I could +never bear it--to go away alone, that way, disgraced, to begin work over +again in a strange place, among strange people. But I had to do it, just +as I have to do this." She straightened and faced Peter. Her voice +changed; it belonged to the curt, determined Sheila. + +"I'm going across, to nurse the boys over there. The boy over in the +Surgical pointed the way for me. There's a big thing going on in the +world--something almost as big as the war--it's the business of getting +the boys ready for life after their share in the war is over, and I don't +mean just nursing their bodies back to health. Everything is changed for +them; they've got new standards, new interests, new hearts, new souls, and +we women have got to keep pace with them. And we mustn't fail them--don't +you see that? Oh, I know I have no place of my own in the war: you are +safe, and I have no brothers. But I'm a woman--a nurse, thank God! And I'm +free to go for the mothers and sweethearts who can't. Don't you +understand?" + +And Peter answered from an overwhelmingly full and troubled heart, "Oh +yes, I understand." + +"I knew you would." Sheila raised starry eyes to the man who had never +failed her. "Those boys will need all the sympathy, all the wholesome +tenderness we can send across to them, and they'll need our hands at their +backs until they get their foothold again. I've served my apprenticeship +at that so long I can do it." + +Peter gathered her close in his arms. "God and I know how well." + +It was not until they were leaving the gardens that Peter asked the +question that had been in his mind all through the evening. "What about +the wedding? I suppose you're not going to marry me, now." + +"Can't. Haven't the courage. Man of mine, don't you know that after I once +belonged to you I couldn't leave you? I've only had sips of happiness so +far. If I once drained the cup, only God's hand could take it from me." + +"And the wedding? The old San's just set its heart on that wedding." + +The radiant smile crept back to Sheila's lips. Even in the dark Peter +could tell that the old luminous Leerie was beside him once more. "Why, +that's one of the nicest parts of it all. We're going to pass our wedding +on to those children--make them a sort of wedding-present of it. Won't +that be splendid?" + +"Oh yes," said Peter, without enthusiasm. "Does it suit them?" + +"They don't know yet. Guess I'd better go and tell them." + +It is doubtful if anybody but Sheila O'Leary could have managed such an +affair and left every one reasonably happy over it--two of them +unreasonably so. She accepted the wedding collation bestowed by the +wealthy old ladies of the sanitarium and passed it over to the boy and his +betrothed as if it had been as trivial a gift as an ice-cream cone. In a +like manner she passed on the trousseau, kissed all the nurses rapturously +for their work, and piled it all into Clarisse's arms with the remark that +it was lucky they were so nearly of a size. When she brought the +wedding-dress she kissed her, too, and said that she was going to make the +prettiest picture in it that the San or the soldier had seen in years. She +placated the management; she wheedled Miss Maxwell into a good humor; she +even coaxed Doctor Fuller into giving away the bride. Only Hennessy +refused to be propitiated. + +"Are ye thinkin' of givin' Mr. Brooks away with everythin' else?" he +asked, scornfully; and then, his indignation rising to a white wrath, he +shouted, "I'll not put bows on the swans, an' I'll not come to any +second-hand weddin'." + +But he did come, and held with Flanders the satin ribbons they had +promised to hold for Sheila. And the wedding became one of the greenest +of all the memories that had gone down on the San books. + +As the sun clipped the far-away hills the boy was wheeled down the paths +to where the gold and white of early roses were massed in summer splendor. +Then came the girl with Sheila at her side; the girl had begged too hard +to be refused. But Sheila's face was as white as it had been the day they +operated on Doctor Dempsy, and only Peter guessed what it cost her to +stand with the bride. To Peter's care had been intrusted the little +mother, and he let her weep continually on his shoulder in between the +laughs he kept bringing to her lips. + +And it all ended merrily. Sheila saw to that. But perhaps the thing that +gave her the keenest pleasure was wheedling out of Mr. Crotchets his +bungalow that stood on the slopes beyond the golf-links for a honeymoon. + +"They'll have all the quiet they want and the care he still needs," she +told Peter when they were alone. "And nobody but the nurse in charge knows +about it--yet." Then seeing the great longing in Peter's eyes, she drew +him away from the crowd. "Listen, man of mine! I have the feeling that +when we are married there will be no wedding, just you and I and the +preacher. And in my heart I like it better that way." + +"So do I," agreed Peter. + +"I'm leaving--train to-night," Sheila hurried on. "No use putting it off; +better sail as soon as the passport's ready. There's just one thing more I +want to say before I leave you." + +Then Peter chuckled for the first time that day. "You can say it, of +course, but if you think you're going to leave me behind, you're mistaken. +I wired the chief the day you told me. They need another correspondent +over there. When it comes to passports there is some advantage in not +being a husband, after all. Well--are you glad?" + +When Hennessy came upon them, a few minutes later, they looked so +supremely happy and oblivious of the rest of the world that he was forced +to stop. "Sure, ye might be the bride an' groom, afther all, by the looks +of ye. What's come over ye all of a sudden?" And when Peter told him, and +they both put their hands in Hennessy's in final parting, he shirred his +lips and whistled forth evidence of a satisfied emotion to which he added +a word of warning to Peter: + +"I'm not envyin' ye, just the same, Mr. Brooks. Afore ye get her home +again ye'll find the Irish say right, 'A woman's more throuble to look +afther than a thorn in the foot or a goat fetched back from the fair!'" + + + + +Chapter VI + +MONSIEUR SATAN + + +There had been nothing, perhaps, more radically changed by the rigors of +war than Atlantic transportation. The thrills of pleasure and romance that +attended the tourist in the days before the war had deepened to thrills of +another timbre, while romance had become more epic than idyllic. The happy +phrase of "going abroad" had given place to "going over" or "going +across"; such a trifling difference in words, but the accompaniment comes +in quite another key. It was no longer shouted in a care-free, +happy-go-lucky fashion; it may have had a ring of suppressed exultation; +but it was sure to be whispered with a quick intake of breath, and so +often it came through teeth that were clenched. + +The piers had changed their gala attire. The departure from this country +for another was no longer a matter of mere rejoicing and congratulatory +leave-taking. The gangways no longer swarmed with friends shouting, "Bon +voyage!" There was no free voicing of anticipation, no effervescing of +good humor. The Spirit of Adventure was there, but he had changed his +costume and his make-up. So had the good ships. Their black paint and +white trimmings were gone; gone were the gay red funnels; and in their +stead were massed the grays and blues, the greens and blacks of +camouflage. The piers were deserted. A thin stream of travelers sifted in; +there were a few officials and deckhands; and far outside, beyond hail of +ship or sea or traveler, in a barbed-wire inclosure, guarded by military +police, stood a few scattered, silent figures. They were the remnants war +had left of the once-upon-a-time jocose band of waving, shouting friends. + +All this Sheila O'Leary felt as she stood on the upper deck of a French +liner with Peter Brooks and watched their fellow-passengers board the +ship. She was tingling from head to foot with almost as many emotions as +there are ganglia in the nervous system. It was as if she had suddenly +claimed the world for a patient and had laid fingers to its pulse for the +first time. Eagerly, impatiently, she was waiting to count each successive +beat until she should be able to read into the throbbing rhythm of it all +a meaning for herself. + +As Sheila thought in terms of her work, so Peter thought in terms of his. +It was all copy to him. Each group that followed another up the gangway +carried the promise of a story to Peter. There were Red Cross nurses, +canteen workers, a college unit for reconstruction work, a hospital unit, +scores of detached American officers going over for the first time, scores +of French and British returning, a few foreigners getting back to their +respective countries, and hosts of non-descripts whose civilian clothes +gave no hint of their missions. Last of all came a sudden, swift influx of +celestial blue. + +Peter smiled at them with anticipation, "Look, Leerie, the Blue Devils of +France! There ought to be the making of a good yarn." + +But Sheila barely heard. The mass had captured her imagination on the +instant with a dramatic intensity too overpowering to be denied. +Unconsciously she smiled. They were going back to fight again--to be +wounded. Who knew--in a month she might be nursing some of them. The Blue +Devils had reached the gangway; they were just below them when one looked +up. Black eyes as unfathomable as forest pools looked into Sheila's quiet +gray ones. For a moment there was almost a greeting flashed between them; +as if they recognized something common to them both that lay in the past +or the future. It was one of those gossamer threads of fate that a few +glimpse rarely in their lives. + +Peter saw, and was on the point of giving tongue to his astonishment when +a voice from behind interrupted them: "The ship sails at ten; it lacks +thirty seconds of that. There is the typical instance of the way these +Devils obey their orders. Is it not so?" + +The voice savored of France. Sheila and Peter turned together to find a +little man, with a small, pleasant face, topped with shaggy brown hair, +and dabs of mustache and beard placed like a colon under his nose. His +shrug was the conclusive evidence of his nationality. + +"Well, thirty seconds is enough," laughed Sheila. "Time is as precious as +food, gold, or gunpowder these days. Why waste it?" + +"And men," supplemented the little man. "Perhaps, mad'moiselle already +knows Bertrand Fauchet, the young captain who passed below?" + +Sheila shook her head. + +The little man rubbed his hands together in keen enjoyment. "Ah, there is +a man; but they are all men. The Boches have named them well. They fight +like demons, then they rest and play like children until their turn comes +to fight again. And Fauchet--he is a devil of a devil, possessed of a +thousand lives. Mad'moiselle would adore him." + +Sheila's demure chin tilted mutinously, "But I don't like devils, even +blue ones." + +"Ah, you do not understand. C'est la guerre. We must lock away in our +hearts all the pity, all the tenderness, as we hide our jewels and our +treasures and mask our cathedrals. If we did not they would all be +destroyed and we would go quite mad." He smiled whimsically at Sheila, as +one smiles at a child who fails to comprehend. "Wait--wait till +mad'moiselle sees France. Then--" He finished with a shrug and left them. + +They were in midstream when they saw the little man again. He came +hurrying toward them with both hands outstretched to Peter. "It is Mr. +Brooks. I did not know when I was speaking with you and mad'moiselle +before. They told me at the office of your paper that you would be sailing +to-day. May I present Jacques Marchand of the _Figaro_, a +fellow-journalist?" and he made a profound bow which included Sheila. + +Peter introduced the girl beside him and the little man looked at her with +whetted interest and a twinkle of suppressed humor. "You women of America, +you come like battalions of good angels to nurse our devils. Eh bien, +before the sun goes down you shall meet your first one. Au 'voir till +then." + +They were in the stern, watching the last of the sun in their wake as it +turned myriads of whirring wings to iridescent gold, when the little man +found them again. This time he was not alone. Close upon his heels came +the captain of the Blue Devils; and again the black eyes met Sheila's when +they were still a man's length apart. + +"Mad'moiselle," said Jacques Marchand, "I have brought, as I +promised--Monsieur Satan--Mad'moiselle O'Leary. Look him well over; you +will see he has not the horns or cloven feet, nevertheless--mais, voilà." + +The captain was blushing like a very bashful little boy; he was smiling as +naïvely as an infant. Sheila guessed at his age and placed it not far from +twenty. Who had ever conceived of a boy-Mephistopheles? It was absurd. A +genuine diabolical personage had no right to a pre-middle age; for him all +years prior to forty should not exist. And here was undeniably a boy, +whose very bashfulness and naïveté bore witness that he had not entirely +grown up. So Sheila smiled back upon him with the frankness and abandon +one feels so safe in bestowing upon youth. + +"This paper-man, he likes to be what you call funny. It pays him well, and +he must keep, what you say, his feet in. But I do not like always his +little jokes. I will make a new introduce so. Bertrand Fauchet, capitaine +Chasseurs Alpins, very much at your service, ma'am'selle." The soldier +bowed with solemnity. It was evident he felt his dignity had been +trampled on and resented it. + +The little man of the _Figaro_ wagged a forefinger at him. "Ah, tata, +garçon. Remember, I am your godfather in the battalion. It is I that give +you the name. Three years ago in the Café des Alcazar I call you Monsieur +Satan, and it stick. You cannot rub it off; you cannot make France forget +it; and when you come back so fierce--so terrific from the fighting at +Troyes where you get the Croix de Guerre it is not for Capitaine Fauchet +the men shout--non. It is for Monsieur Satan they shout, for the devil of +a Blue Devil. Eh, mon ami?" And he laid a loving arm across the other's +shoulder. + +During the crossing the four met often; the journalist always kindly and +loquacious, Monsieur Satan always shy. Sometimes he joined Sheila alone +for an after-dinner promenade. It was always at that hour when the day was +fading into a luminous twilight that told of stars to come, and they +tramped the decks in a strange, companionable silence. It was plain that +Monsieur Satan did not wish to talk, and Sheila gave him freely the +silence he craved. Once he stopped and looked over the railing, hard at +the sea horizon. + +"Did you ever think, ma'am'selle," he said, softly, "how the great ocean +shows nothing of the war? The underneath may be choked with sunken ships, +the murdered ships, but the ocean has no scars. It is not like our +sorrowful France--all scars. So--I find it good to look at this and +forget. Perhaps, some day, a peace like this will come to the heart of +Bertrand Fauchet. Qui savez?" + +And another time, when he was wishing her good night, he added: "Dormez +bien--sans songes, ma'am'selle. The dreams, they are bad." + +But generally he left her with just a pressure of the hand and an "_Au +'voir_." And yet there was always in his voice a suppressed gratitude as +for a gift. + +When Peter was alone with him he tried to draw him out and got nothing for +his pains. The story he had scented on their day of embarkation had +undoubtedly left no trail. When he aired his disappointment good-naturedly +to Sheila she only laughed at him. + +"If you want a story go to some of the other devils; we'll never know more +of Monsieur Satan till Fate turns interlocutor." + +"Well, he's certainly the most slumbering devil I ever saw. If that's the +worst French soil can propagate, it's hard to believe the Germans they +tackle get much of an inferno." + +In spite of his skepticism, however, Peter had an unexpected glimpse into +that inferno the day before they landed. For thirty-six hours they had +been running through the danger zone with life-boats loose on their +davits, life-belts ready for adjustment, and nerves tense. Then the +tension had suddenly relaxed, everybody talked with everybody else, +displaying a lack of restraint that bordered on intimacy. Peter and Sheila +were strolling an almost deserted deck toward a group amidships. As they +neared it they saw it was dominated by two principal figures--one a +professional philanthropist with more sentiment than judgment, and the +other Monsieur Satan. The philanthropist was talking in what Peter termed +an "open-throttle voice." + +"But you don't mean you would ever harm a defenseless prisoner, Captain +Fauchet? Of course you would never allow your men to kill a fallen enemy +or one supplicating mercy." + +"Supplicating mercy--bah!" The mouth that could smile so boyishly had a +diabolical twist, the eyes blazed like hell-fires, as Peter said +afterward. "There is only the one Boche that is safe, madame--the dead +Boche. When we find them wriggling I teach my men to make them +safe--quickly!" The lips smiled sardonically. Monsieur Satan was a boy no +longer; in some inexplicable fashion he had come into full possession of +that Mephistophelian middle-age. + +But the lady philanthropist had neither the eyes to see nor the +intelligence to understand. Instead she clumsily parried with invisible +forces. "Of course you don't mean that, Captain Fauchet. You are just +making believe you are a wicked man. I believe you are trying to stuff me, +as our American slang puts it. Now if a wounded German came running toward +you crying Kamerad--" + +"Sacrebleu! Oui, madame, once I listen to that Kamerad. But now--jamais! +When they call it with their lying tongues I shout them back 'Kamerad to +hell!' and I zigeuille." The right hand made a swift, subtle twist with a +deep thrust. It took little imagination to guess what it was supposed to +be holding. For a second Monsieur Satan's eyes still continued to blaze at +the woman before him; then he tossed back his head, plunged through the +crowd, and was gone. + +"A devil of a Blue Devil," quoted Peter under his breath. "Our friend, +Monsieur Marchand, was not indulging in hyperbole after all." + +Sheila watched him go and said nothing. + +That twilight, when Monsieur Satan joined her, he looked as harmless as +ever, only a trifle more bashful. "Perhaps ma'am'selle will care no longer +to promenade with the wicked man. N'est ce pas?" + +"A brave man," corrected Sheila, and she looked straight into the black +eyes. "A brave man who has given himself body and soul to France." + +"Body and soul. Oui, ma'am'selle. But listen--there is something--" His +face changed in a breath, the eyes were blazing again, the mouth had +turned as sinister as his _nom de guerre_ signified. But something in +Sheila's eyes checked him. He put out a hand unconsciously and laid it on +her as though to steady himself. "Non, ma'am'selle. One need not tell +everything. You will see enough--enough." + +When they landed, his good-bys to her were curiously brief. He held her +hand a second as if he would have said a great deal; then with a quick +"_Au 'voir_" he flung it from him and was down the gangway. But with Peter +it was different. He found him alone and vouchsafed him for the first time +what might have been called conversation. + +"I do not know until yesterday that you were betrothed to Ma'am'selle +O'Leary. That is so?" + +Peter nodded. + +"You have been generous, monsieur. I wish to thank you." + +Peter held out his hand. "Oh, that's all right. American men aren't given +to being jealous, as a rule. Besides, Miss O'Leary is the sort one has no +right to be selfish with. I guess you understand?" + +"Oui, monsieur. She belongs a little to every one, man or child, who needs +the sympathy, the kind word, the loving heart. Moi, I comprehend. Some +time, perhaps, I render back the service. Then you can trust me; the honor +of Bertrand Fauchet can be trusted with women. Adieu, monsieur." + +By dawn the next day the passengers of the liner were scattering to the +far corners of the fighting-front. Jacques Marchand had gone, _via_ the +office of the _Figaro_, to Flanders. Monsieur Satan had been despatched to +relieve another captain of the Chasseurs Alpins with French outposts along +the Oise. Peter had received his war permits to join the A. E. F. in +action and Sheila had received her appointment to an evacuation hospital +near the front. Her parting with Peter was over before either of them had +time to realize it. Her train left the Gare du Nord before his. They had +very little to say, these two who had claimed each other out of all the +world and now were putting aside their personal happiness that they might +give their service where it was so really needed. There were no +whimperings of heart, no conscious self-righteousness; only a great +gladness that hard work lay before them and that they understood each +other. + +"Good-by, man o' mine. Whatever happens, remember I am yours for always, +and death doesn't count," and Sheila laid her lips to Peter's in final +pledge. + +"I know," said Peter. "That's what makes all this so absurdly easy. And, +sweetheart, you are to remember this, never put any thought of me before +what you feel you have got to do. Don't bungle your instincts. I'd swear +by them next to God's own." + +And so they went their separate ways. + +There was no apprenticeship for Sheila in the hospital whither she was +sent. The chief of the surgical staff gave a cursory glance over the +letter she had brought from the San, signed by the three leading surgeons +in that state; then he looked hard at her. + +"Hm ... m! And strong into the bargain. You're a godsend, Miss O'Leary." + +Before the day had gone she was in charge of one of the operating-rooms; +by midnight they had fifty-three major operations. And the days that +followed were much the same; they passed more like dreams than realities. +There were a few sane, clear moments when Sheila realized that the sky was +very blue or leaden gray; that the sun shone or did not shine, that the +wards were cheery places and that all about her were faces consecrated to +unselfish work or to patient suffering. These were the times when she +could stop for a chat with the boys or write letters home for them. But +for the most part she was being hurled through a maelstrom of operations +and dressings with just enough time between to snatch her share of food +and sleep. Her enthusiasm was unbounded for the marvelous efficiency of it +all. She could never have believed that so many delicate operations could +have been done in so few hours, that wounds could heal with such rapidity, +that nerves could rebound and hearts come sturdily through to go about +their business of keeping their owners alive. And every boy brought to her +room was a fighting chance; but the fight was up to her and the surgeons, +and they fought as archangels might to restore a new heaven on a befouled +earth. Life had always seemed full and worth while to her. Now it seemed a +super-life, shorn of everything petty and futile. + +"War may be hell; very likely it is for those who make it; but for us who +do the patching afterward it's like the Day of Creation. I feel as if I'd +put new souls into mended bodies." And the gruff, overtired chief who +heard her smiled and mumbled to himself, "Those of us who survive will all +have new souls; old ones have atrophied and dropped off." + +Fall was slow in coming. Instead of settling down to trench hibernating as +had been the custom for three years, the Entente kept to its periodic +attacks, pushing the enemy back farther and still a little farther, so +that trenches were no longer the permanent abiding-places they had been in +the past. Just as every one was prophesying the numbing of hostilities +until spring, the rumor spread of Foch's final drive. On the heels of the +rumor came the drive itself. Hospitals were taxed to their utmost; +surgeons and nurses worked for days with a maximum of four hours' sleep a +night. In Sheila's hospital Anzacs, Territorials, poilus, Americans, +Tommies, and Zouaves poured in indiscriminately. Mattresses covered every +square inch on the floor and canvas was stretched in the yard over many +more. The number of operating-tables gave out at the beginning and they +used stretchers, boards--anything that could hold a wounded man. + +"It's our last pull," said the doctors. "If we can keep going three--four +more days, we'll have as many months to get back some of our wind." + +"Of course we'll keep going," said the nurses. And they slept in their +clothes for those days and did dressings in their sleep. + +When it was over and they had settled down to what was near-routine again +they began to sort out the minor cases and pass on the convalescents. +Sheila, who had slept on the threshold of her room for weeks, was dragged +forth by the chief to make the rounds with him and dispose of the +negligible cases. It was in the last ward that she came upon Monsieur +Satan. + +From across the room she was conscious of the change in him. He was not +much hurt--an exploding shell had damaged one foot and his heart had been +strained. It was a mental change that caught Sheila's attention. The eyes +had grown abnormally alert and cunning; there was nothing boyish or naïve +left to the mouth; it was sinister, vengeful, unrelenting. He was in a +wheel-chair between two husky giants of Australians who kept wary eyes +upon him. As the surgeon and the nurse reached them, Monsieur Satan +tossed his head back with a sudden recognition, and Sheila held out a +friendly hand. + +"I am glad to see you again, Captain Fauchet; not much of a scratch, I +hope." + +The eyes held their cunning, the sinister droop to the lips intensified as +they curved mockingly to greet her: "Bon! It is Ma'am'selle O'Leary. The +scratch it is nothing. Bertrand Fauchet has still the two good hands to +kill with." He curled them as if over the hilts of invisible weapons, and +with lightning thrusts attacked the air about him. "Une, deux, trois, +quatre, cinq--Ha-ha!" and the appalling pantomime ended with a diabolical +laugh. + +In some inexplicable fashion he had come into full possession of his _nom +de guerre_. Sheila had thought her nerves steel, her control unshakable; +but she was shuddering when they reached the corridor. There she broke +through the orthodox repression of her calling and quizzed the chief. + +"What's happened? He wasn't like that when I knew him. If it was +witch-times we'd say he'd been caught by the evil eye." + +"Same thing, brought up to date. It's shell shock. Memory all right, +nerves and brain speeded up like a maniac; he's come back obsessed with +the idea he must kill. First night he was brought in, before we knew what +the matter was, he knifed the two Germans in his ward. Since then we've +kept him safe between these two Australians, but he has their nerves +almost shattered." The chief smiled grimly. + +To Sheila it seemed diabolically logical. What was more natural in this +business of war than that when one's reason went over the top it should +grip the mad desire to kill? But the horror of it! She turned back to the +day's work white and sick at heart. For twenty-four hours she accepted it +as inevitable. At the end of that time her memory was harkening back to +the bashful boy of the French liner, the boy who could smile like a lost +cherub, who looked at her with the fineness of soul that made her +companionship a willing gift. Had that fine, simple part of him been blown +to eternity and could eternity alone bring it back? And what of the years +before him, the years such a physique was bound to claim? Did it mean a +mad-cell with a keeper? + +At the end of a third day the old Leerie of the San was walking through +the wards of the hospital with her lamp trimmed and burning, casting such +a radiance on that eager face that the men turned in their cots to catch +the last look of her as she passed; and after she had gone blinked across +at one another as if to say: "Did you see it? Did you feel it? And what +was it, anyway?" + +She was looking for some one; and she found him with a leg shot off, +playing a mouth-organ in the farthest corner of one ward. He was a +Chasseur Alpin; he had been wounded in the same charge as Monsieur Satan. +Sheila was searching for cause and effect and she prayed this man might +help her find them. As she sat down on the edge of the cot she thanked her +particular star for a speaking knowledge of French. "Bon jour, mon ami. I +have come for your help. C'est pour Capitaine Fauchet." + +The mouth-organ dropped to the floor. The eyes that had been merely +pleasantly retrospective gathered gloom. "Mais, que voulez-vous? All the +others say it is hopeless. Tell me, ma'am'selle, what can I do?" + +"I don't know--I hardly know what any of us can do. But we must try +something. We know so little about shell shock, so often the impossible +happens. Tell me, were you with him?" + +The soldier hitched himself forward and leaned over on one elbow. +"Toujours, ma'am'selle, always I am with him. Listen. I can tell you. I +was born in the little town of Tourteron where Bertrand Fauchet was +born--and where Nanette came to live with her brother Paul and their +uncle, the good abbé. I was not of their class; but we all played together +as children and even then Bertrand loved Nanette. The year war came they +were betrothed. I am not tiring ma'am'selle?" + +"No. Go on." + +"We both enlisted in the Chasseurs Alpins. They made Bertrand a +lieutenant, then a captain--he was a man to lead. And how kind, how good +to his men! That was before he had won his nom de guerre--before they +called him Monsieur Satan. If there was a danger he would see it first and +race for it, to get ahead of his men. He would give them no orders that he +would not fill with them; and always so pitying for the prisoners. 'Treat +them kindly, mes garçons,' he would cry; and what mercy he would show! Mon +Dieu! I have seen him, when his mouth was cracking with the thirst, pour +the last drop from his canteen down the throat of a dying Boche, or share +the last bread in his baluchon with a wounded prisoner. And the many times +he has crept into No Man's Land to bring in a blessé we could hear moaning +in the dark; and when it turned out a Boche, as so often it did, he would +carry him with the same tenderness. That was Bertrand Fauchet when war +began. Once I ask him, 'Why are you so careful with the Boches?' and he +smiled that little-boy smile of his and say: 'Why not? We are still +gentlemen if we are at war. And listen, François--some day our little +Tourteron may fall into Boche hands. I would have them know many +kindnesses from us before that happens.' + +"Eh bien, Tourteron did fall into their hands, ma'am'selle, and there it +has been until a fortnight ago. The German ranks swept it like a sea and +made it their own, as they made the houses, the cattle, the orchards, the +maids, quite their own. You comprehend? After that Bertrand fight like +the devil and pray like the saint. Then one day a Boche stabs +Paul--Nanette's brother Paul--as he stoops to succor him. Fauchet sees; +and he hears the tales that come across the trenches to us. The abbé is +crucified to the chapel door because he gives sanctuary to the young +girls; Père Fauchet is shot in the Square with other anciens for example. +After that Capitaine Fauchet gives us the order 'no mercy,' and we kill in +battle and out. Ma'am'selle shudders--mais, que voulez-vous? He is +Monsieur Satan now; but I still think he prays. + +"And now comes the big drive of the Supreme Command. Village after village +that has been Boche land for four years becomes French again. The people +go mad with joy; they come rushing out to meet our regiments like souls +turned out of hell by God Himself. But such souls, ma'am'selle! Be +thankful in your heart you shall never have the little places of America +thrown back to you by a retreating Boche army, never look into the faces +of the people who have been made to serve their desires. It is like when +the tide goes out on the coast and leaves behind it wreckage and slime. +Only here it was human wreckage. + +"At last the night came when we lay outside Tourteron. Bertrand called for +me and we bivouacked together. We were to attack some time before dawn, +after the moon had set. We could not trust our tongues--at such times +things are better left unsaid; so we lay and smoked and prayed against +what we feared. Only once Bertrand spoke--'François, to-morrow will see me +always a devil or a saint, le bon Dieu knows which.' + +"The moon shone bright till after midnight. We lay under cover of thin +weeds, and beyond lay the meadow and stream and then the town. About +twelve we heard the crisp bark of a sniper--two, three shots; then +everything was still as death again. We were watching the shadows play +across the meadow and timing the minutes before the moon would sink, when +out of one of those shadows she came--straight across the meadow and the +moonlight. It was Nanette, ma'am'selle. We knew it on the instant. She had +a way of carrying the head and a step one could not forget. It was she the +sniper had been after. One side of her face was crimson, the other side +white and beautiful. But she did not seem to know, and the first look I +had told me she had gone quite mad. + +"I could feel Bertrand Fauchet stiffen by my side; I could feel him reach +out for my Rosalie and grip it fast. Then he began a low or crooning call. +He dared not call out loud--he dared not move to give our troops away! It +was to be a surprise attack. So all he could do was to wait and call +softly as to a little child, 'Nanette chérie, allons, allons!' + +"There had been a skirmish in the meadow two days before; we had given way +and the handful of dead we had left behind were still unburied. I think +Nanette had heard that the Chasseurs Alpins had come and she had stolen +out to find her lover. She came slowly, so slowly, and frail as a shadow +herself. As she passed each corpse she knelt beside it and sang the +foolish little berceuse that Poitou mothers sing to their babies. We could +hear the humming far away, and as she came nearer we could hear the words. +Ma'am'selle knows them, perhaps? + + "'Ah! Ah! papillon, marie-toi-- + Hélas, mon maître, je n'ai pas de quoi, + La dans ma bergeri-e + J'ai cent moutons; ça s'ra pour faire les noces de papillon.'" + + +[Illustration: "The first look I had told me she had gone quite mad"] + + +The soldier crooned the song through to himself as if under the spell of +the story he was telling. Then he went on. "She sang it through each time, +patting the blue coats, pushing back the caps of those who still wore +them, looking hard into each dead face. But she would always turn away +with the little shake of the head, so triste, ma'am'selle. And all the +time the man beside me calling out his heart in a whisper--'Nanette-- +Nanette--allons, chérie!' + +"She was not twenty yards away, the arms of Bertrand Fauchet were reaching +out to take her, when, pouf! the sniper barked again and Nanette went down +like a pale cornflower before the reaper. And all the time we laid there, +waiting for the moon to set. When we charge we charge like devils. We +swept Tourteron clean of the Boches; _and we take no prisoners!_ For that +night every man remember the one thing, they love their captain and they +see what he has seen. But before the day is gone we are sane men again, +all but our captain. The shell that takes my leg takes what pity, what +softness he has left, and leaves him with just the frenzy to kill. And it +is not for me to wonder--moi--for I know all." + +The story haunted Sheila for days; always when she closed her eyes she +could see the girl Nanette coming across the meadow in the moonlight. She +never failed to open them before she saw too far. The plaintive melody of +the berceuse rang in her ears on duty and off, till at last she could +stand it no longer. It was the old dominant Leerie who hunted up the +chief. + +"Colonel Sparks, I want you to put me on Captain Fauchet's case. The work +is lighter now; you can do with one less operating-room. I know it's bad +form to interfere, but I want my chance on that case." + +The chief looked his surprise. "I've heard of your fondness for breaking +rules--wondered when you were going to begin. I don't mind giving you up, +but that case is hopeless. I'm sure of it. Listen--and this isn't for +publication--Fauchet got out of his ward again, hid in the corridors until +the nurse was gone, and killed another German last night. That man is +incurably insane and we can't keep him here any longer." + +"Please!" There was a look about Leerie that could not be denied, a +compelling prayer for the right to save another human being. "You could +keep him a little longer; I'll promise there'll be no more dead Germans. +Give me my chance." + +"What's your idea?" + +The girl raised a deprecating hand. "Something so crazy that you'd laugh +at it. Let me keep it to myself--and give me Captain Fauchet." + +In the end Leerie had her wish. The little room at the end of a ward, used +heretofore for supplies, was turned into a private room, and Monsieur +Satan was moved in, with Sheila O'Leary as guardian. It was very evident +that the patient approved. Once the door was closed behind them, he +beckoned the nurse to him with malignant joy. + +"They are all Germans out there--I've just discovered it. Sooner or later +they will all have to be destroyed. You are an American. I can swear to +that, for I saw you on a liner coming from America and your French is so +bad, pardonnez-moi, it could not be anything but American. That is why I +trust you. You are with me against the Boches, n'est-ce pas?" + +Sheila solemnly agreed. + +"Eh bien, listen. The world is slowly turning Boche. You pour a little +Pinard into water and what do you get? Crimson! Well, you scatter a few +Boches over the earth and what have you? A German world colored Prussian +blue. Come closer, ma'am'selle." He put out nervous hands and drew her +down so he could whisper his words. "And the cure, ma'am'selle, the cure? +Ah, moi, Monsieur Satan, knows it." + +They spent the rest of the day in discussing the killing qualities of +shells, grenades, bombs; the stabbing qualities of bayonets, daggers, +swords; the exploding properties of dynamite, nitroglycerin, TNT, and +others. As they talked Monsieur Satan sucked in his breath exultantly and +hissed between his teeth, "_Zigouille, toujours zigouille!_" while his +hand stabbed and twisted into the air. + +Another day and he had taken Sheila entirely into his confidence. "I have +my mind made. You shall hear the cure, ma'am'selle, for you and I will be +partners. A Boche world can be cured but the one way--destroyed, +completely destroyed," and he laughed uproariously. Then his eyes +narrowed; he was all cunning and intensity, a beast of prey crouched for +the spring. "Ah, but we must whisper; there are spies everywhere. The men +in the wards are all spies pretending they are French wounded; and the +doctors are spies. Oh, the Boches are damnably clever, but we will be more +damnable--we will outwit them. We will blow them into a million atoms. +They will make good fertilizer for French vineyards in a hundred years. Eh +bien?" + +So Sheila became partner in evolving the most colossal crime the world had +ever known. Everything played into her hands and gave credence to her +deceptions. The great cases that came by night packed with dressings were +to Monsieur Satan air-bombs with propellers. They were to be set loose on +the day appointed in such millions that the air would be charged with +them, the sun blotted out; and they would drop in exploding masses over +the earth, exterminating humanity. + +"They shall be like the hordes of locusts that nearly destroyed +Egypt--only these shall destroy. And how every one shall run in terror! +You will see, ma'am'selle. It will be a good sight." And Monsieur Satan +rubbed his hands in keen anticipation. + +The tanks of oxygen placed on motor-trucks, the gasoline-tanks, were +nothing else than a deadly gas. The partners had concocted it out of the +strangest compounds, unshed-tears, heart-agony, fear-in-the-night, +snipers' barks, and moonshine. Monsieur Satan chuckled over the formula +and said he would swear not a living soul could withstand a single whiff +of it. It was agreed that the makers of the gas--mythological beings +Sheila had created--should be killed at once so that their secret should +never be discovered; and Sheila herself was despatched to compass the +deed. Before she returned the bell in the church near by was tolling for +their parting souls; and Monsieur Satan chuckled as he cast admiring +glances at this prompt executioner. + +"You are a good pupil, ma'am'selle; you learn quickly. Now the maps." And +they fell to diagraming where the piping for this deadly gas should be +laid. + +Not an inch of the old world was to be left peopled; from east to west and +north to south everything was to be destroyed. No, not everything. Even as +Monsieur Satan decreed it he hesitated. "There are the children, I +think--yes, I think they shall live. Their hearts are pure; the Boches +cannot contaminate them. They shall live after us with no memory of evil, +so they can build again the beautiful world." He stopped and looked across +at the nurse with a haunting, wistful stare. "Tell me, ma'am'selle, was +the world ever beautiful?" + +"Very beautiful, capitaine." + +He passed an uncertain hand over his eyes. "I seem to remember that it +was; but now I see it always running with red blood boiling from hell." + +After that the children were always in his mind; as he planned the +destruction of the rest of the world he planned their re-creation. +Thereupon Sheila saw to it that the war orphans from the _crêche_ came to +play in the hospital gardens--under the window of the little room. Soon it +became a custom for Monsieur Satan to look for them, to ask their names, +and wave gaily to them. And they waved back. And the chief of the surgical +staff began to marvel that Monsieur Satan should give no more trouble. + +Among them was a little girl, a wan, ethereal little creature who sat +apart from the other children and watched their play with far-away, +haunting eyes, as if she wondered what in the world they were doing. +Sheila had found toys for her--a ball, a doll, a jumping-jack--and tried +to coax her to play. But she only clung to them for their rare value as +possessions; as a means to enjoyment they were quite meaningless. From one +of the older children Sheila got her story. Her father had been killed, +her mother was with the Boches; there was no one else. With an aching +heart the nurse wondered how many thousand Madelines France held. + +One day she brought the child in to Monsieur Satan and repeated her story. +He listened wisely, patting her on the head, and then whispered to Sheila: +"Ah, what did I say! These Boches--they get everything--the mothers, the +sweethearts." Then to Madeline: "Listen, ma pauvre; you shall have the +sadness no longer. Monsieur Satan will promise you happiness, ah, such +happiness in the new beautiful world he is preparing for you. Now go. But +'sh ... sh! You must say nothing." + +From this moment Sheila became senior partner. It was she who suggested +all the extraordinary horrors Monsieur Satan had overlooked. It was she +who speeded up time and plans. "I have the hospitals and streets all mined +in case the flying bombs should not come thick enough; and I have the +wells poisoned. Isn't that a clever idea?" + +The man looked disturbed. "That's as clever as the Boches. But the +children--where will they drink? You must take care of the children." + +Then Sheila played her trump card and said the thing she had been waiting +so long to say. Like Monsieur Satan she hissed the words between her +teeth, while her face took on all the diabolical cunning it could muster. +"The children--bah! What do they matter, after all? I have decided--the +children shall be destroyed." + +Monsieur Satan sprang from his chair. He pinioned her arms behind her, +forcing her back so he could look deep into her eyes with all the hate +and mercilessness his soul harbored. "Touch Madeline--the children, never! +Let so much as one little hair of their heads be harmed and I--Monsieur +Satan--will kill you!" + +She left him with a non-committal shrug, left him panting and swearing +softly under his breath. + +From that moment he watched Sheila suspiciously and followed the children +with jealous eyes. For Madeline he called constantly; and she sat on his +knee by the hour while he danced the jumping-jack outrageously and taught +her to sing to the doll a certain foolish berceuse that Poitou mothers +sing to their babies. + +Sheila had planned to stage their day of destruction with the craft of a +master manager. She had had to take certain officials into her confidence +and get the chief to sign such orders as had never been issued in a +hospital before. But in the end Fate staged it, and did it infinitely +better than the nurse had even conceived it. The hour of doom struck a +full half-day too soon--the children were playing in the gardens, under +Monsieur Satan's window instead of being in the cellar of the _crêche_ as +he had decreed; and Sheila was helping another head nurse do dressings in +the ward outside. + +There were only a few minutes after the siren blew before the first of the +great Fokkers appeared over the city. Monsieur Satan's mind went strangely +blank; the children stopped their play and gaped stupidly into the sky; +Sheila did nothing but listen. Then the bombs began to rain down on the +city. The noise was terrific. The children ran aimlessly about, shrieking +pitifully. It was this that set Monsieur Satan's mind to working again. He +broke out of the little room like the madman he was. He might have been +Lucifer himself as he stumbled along on his bandaged foot, his hair erect, +his eyes blazing a thousand inextinguishable fires. In the corridor he +came upon Sheila, with other nurses and doctors, hurrying to gather in the +out-of-door patients. As he overtook them a bomb struck the hospital. + +"Sacrebleu!" he shouted. "You bungler! you fool of a destroyer! It was not +the hour--and the children--First I go to save them. Afterward I come to +kill you, ma'am'selle." + +He was out before them all, through the entrance and down the steps, when +another bomb struck. The doorway and the pillars were crushed to gravel +and Monsieur Satan was hurled headlong across the gardens. In an instant +he was up, stumbling frantically toward the children, his arms +outstretched in appealing vindication to those small, quivering faces +turned to him in their hour of annihilation. "Mes enfants, have no fear. I +come--I come." + +A third bomb fell. The children were tumbled in a heap like a pile of +jackstraws. Monsieur Satan had time enough to see them go down before a +fourth followed with the quick precision of an automatic. Yes, he saw; and +in that horror-smiting moment believed it all a part of his great scheme +of destruction; then the universe went to pieces about him and something +crumbled inside his brain. He stood transfixed to the earth, staring +helplessly in front of him, as immovable as a graven image. + +It is one of the anomalies of war that the things that apparently destroy +sometimes re-create. The gigantic impact of exploding masses may destroy a +man's hearing, his sight, his memory, or his mercy, and leave him thus +maimed for all time. But it happens, sometimes, that the first shock is +followed by another which restores with the suddenness of a miracle and +makes the man whole again. That delicate bit of human mechanism which has +been battered out of place is battered in, by the merest chance. + +So it was with Monsieur Satan; and when Sheila and the chief found him he +was rubbing his eyes as children will who wake and find themselves in +strange places. He saw only the chief at first and tried to pull himself +together. + +"Ah, monsieur, I think some things have happened--but I cannot as yet make +the full report. I am Bertrand Fauchet, Chasseur Alpin," and he tried to +click his bandaged heel against his shoe. Then he looked beyond and saw +Sheila. It was as if he was seeing her for the first time since they had +separated at the French quay. "Bon Dieu! It is Ma'am'selle O'Leary." He +held out a shaking hand. "We meet in the thick of war--is it not so?" + +His eyes left Sheila and traveled apprehensively to the children. They +were wriggling themselves free of one another; frightened and bruised, +but not hurt, barring one. The smallest of them all lay on the outskirts +of the heap, quite motionless. + +"If you will permit," Monsieur Satan stumbled on and gently picked up +Madeline. He looked all compassion and bewilderment. "I do not altogether +understand, ma'am'selle. But this little girl, I should like to carry her +to some hospital and see that all is well with her. I seem to remember +that she belongs to me." He smiled apologetically at the two watching him, +then stumbled ahead with his burden. + +At the base hospital they gave Sheila O'Leary full credit for the curing +of Bertrand Fauchet, which, of course, she flatly denied. She laid it +entirely to the interference of Fate and a child. But the important thing +is that Bertrand Fauchet left the hospital a sound man--and that Madeline +went with him, each holding fast to the hand of the other. + +"She is mine now," he said, as he took leave of Sheila. "Le bon Dieu saw +fit to send me in the place of that other papa. Eh, p'tite?" He stroked +the hair back from the little face that looked worshipfully up at him. +"It is for us who remember to make these little ones forget. N'est-ce pas, +ma'am'selle? And we are going back to the world together, to find +somewhere the happiness and the great love for Madeline. Adieu." + + + + +Chapter VII + +THE LAD WHO OUTSANG THE STARS + + +In the American Military Hospital No. 10 one could always count on Ward +7-A beginning the day with a genuine fanfare of good spirits--that is to +say, ever since that ward had acquired a distinction and personality of +its own. On this particular morning the doors of the wards were open, for +orderlies were scrubbing floors, and Sheila O'Leary in the operating-room +above could catch the words of the third chorus that had rung through the +hospital since the ban of silence had been raised. + + "Gra-ma-cree ma-cruiskeen, Slainte-geal ma-vour-neen, + Gra-ma-cree a-coolin bawn, bawn, bawn, + Oh!" + +As usual, Larry's crescendo boomed in the lead. How those lads could sing! + +In the regular order of things it was time for dressings; but the regular +order of things was so often broken at No. 10 that it had nearly become a +myth. The operating staff had been steadily at it since eleven the night +before. If nothing more came in, they might be through by eleven now and +the dressings come only two hours late. That would be rare good luck. +Under the spell of the singing the tired backs of surgeons and nurses +straightened unconsciously; cramped muscles seemed to lose some of their +kinks; everybody smiled without knowing it--down to the last of the boys +who were waiting their turn in the corridor outside. The boys had not been +in the hospital long enough to know anything about Ward 7-A, but the +challenge to courage and good spirits in that chorus of voices was too +dominant to be denied, even among the sorest wounded of them. One after +another rallied to it like veterans. + +"Gra-ma-cree ma-cruiskeen bawn," boomed Larry's voice to the finish. + +The chief of the Surgical Staff looked at Sheila as she handed him the +sutures he was reaching for. "They're the best we've had yet, eh? Not one +with half a fighting chance, and just listen to the ones who are pulling +through." + +"They're Irish." There was a tinge of pride in the nurse's voice. + +The chief smiled. "It's like flipping a coin to find out whether you're +more Irish or American. Sometimes it's heads, sometimes it's tails. Which +is it, honestly?" + +"Honestly, both!" Sheila laughed softly. Then the door opened to admit the +last of the stretchers, and she sobered for an instant until she saw the +faces of the boys. She knew why they were smiling, and her eyes shone in +the old luminous, Leerie fashion as she greeted them, each as if he had +been an old friend. + +"There's a welcome for you. Those lads you hear have gone through what you +are going through, only a lot worse. Listen, and think of that as you go +under. They'll be singing again in a moment." And as she slipped the ether +cone over the face of the first, up from Ward 7-A in rollicking cadences +came another chorus: + + "Wi' me bundle on me shoulder, sure, there's not a man that's bolder-- + I am leavin' dear old Ireland without warnin'. + For I've lately took the notion for to cross the briny ocean, + An' I'm off for Philadelphia in the mornin'." + +The smile on the face of the first boy spread to a grin under its covering +of gauze. "I'm off for Philadelphia, too," he mumbled, thickly, and the +eyes that looked into Sheila's for a few last nebulous seconds showed all +the comfortable security of a child's. + +They were hard at it for another hour, and while Sheila O'Leary's hands +flew from sterilizer to ether cone, from handing instruments and holding +forceps to tying sutures and packing wounds, her mind was busy with +something that lay far beyond. To this girl, who had come across to do her +bit, life had become a jumble of paradoxes. She had come to give, out of +the bounty of her skill and her womanhood; instead she had received far +more abundantly from the largess of universal brotherhood and sacrifice. +She had come to minister, and she had been ministered unto by every piece +of human wreckage swept across the door-sill of the hospital. She had +thought to dispense life, and to her ever-increasing wonder she had been +given a life so boundless that it reached beyond all previous dreams of +space or time. She was learning what thousands had been learning since the +war began, those who had thrown their fortunes into its crucible, and +that is that if anything comes out at all, it comes out in the form of +spirit and not of flesh. + +Back in the old days at the sanitarium she had felt herself bound only to +the problems and emergencies of war. It had never occurred to her then +that in an incredibly short time she would be bothering about matters of +adjustment afterward. With peace already on the horizon, she was troubled +a hundredfold more than she had been when indefinite war was the promise +for the future. From the beginning she had marveled at the buoyancy and +optimism of the men who were focusing their lives within the limits of +each day. Many of them never thought in terms of more than twenty-four +hours; often it was less. They had learned the knack of intensive living. +World-old truths were flashed into their minds like spot-lights; friends +were made and lost in a few hours; eternity was visioned and compassed in +a minute. The last words Jerry Donoghue of Ward 7-A had said before he +went west came back to Sheila with a curious persistence. + +"When all's said and done, miss, it's been a grand life--Brave lads for +comrades--a lass who kept faith to the end--a good fight an' somethin' +good to fight for--Near five years of it--wi' perdition grinnin' ye in the +face an' the Holy Mother walkin' at your back--Sure, I might ha' lived +fifty year in Letterkenny an' never tasted life half so +plentiful--or--so--sweet." + +That was the strange part of it; they had all found life "plentiful an' +sweet"--nurses, surgeons, soldiers alike. They might be homesick, worn out +with the business of fighting and patching up afterward, eternally aching +in body and heart with the long stretches of horror and work with little +sleep and less food, and yet not a handful out of every thousand of them +would have chosen to quit if they could. + +But when the quitting-time came, when war was over, what was going to +happen then? Sheila wondered it about the boys who lay unconscious on +their stretchers, packed in the room about her. She wondered it about the +boys conscious in their cots below. Most of all she wondered it about Ward +7-A. It was going to hurt so many to have to look beyond the immediate +day into a procession of numberless days stretching into years and years. +The sudden relaxing from big efforts to little ones, that would hurt, too, +like the uncramping of over-strained muscles. And the being thrown back on +oneself to think, to act, to feel for oneself again--what of that? It was +like dismembering a gigantic machine and scattering the infinitesimal +parts of it broadcast over the earth to function alone. Only many of the +parts would be imperfect, and all would have souls to reckon with. + +But of the puzzle of it one fact stood out grippingly vital to Sheila. No +soul must be thrown out of the melting-pot back into the old accustomed +order of life and be left to feel unfit or unnecessary. There must be a +big, compelling place for every man who came home. Of all the tragedies of +war, she could conceive no greater one than to have these men who had put +no limit to the price they were willing to pay to make the world safe for +democracy sent back useless, to mark time to eternity. + +But who was going to keep this from happening? How were the thousands of +mutilés to be made free of the burden of dependence and toleration? Who +was going to guard them against atrophy of spirit? The nurse gathered up +the last of the instruments and threw them in the sterilizer. As she took +off her apron and wiped the beads of sweat from her face, her chief eyed +her suspiciously. + +"Get your coffee before you touch those dressings in 7-A. Understand? When +did you have your clothes off last?" He growled like a good-natured but +spent old dog. + +The girl gave her uniform a disgusted look. "Pretty bad, isn't it? I put +it on four--no, five days ago, but I've had my shoes off twice." She laid +an impulsive hand on the chief's arm. "Promise about the coffee if you'll +promise to do the dressings with me instead of Captain Griggs. He calls +them the 'down-and-outers.' I can't quite stand for that." + +"Well, what would you call 'em?" + +"The invincibles," she declared. "Wouldn't you?" + +But for all her promise, Sheila O'Leary did not get past the door of 7-A +without putting in her head and calling out a "good morning." Whereupon +twelve Irish tongues, dripping almost as many brogues, flung it back at +her with a vengeance. + +There were thirteen of them, all told, the remnants of a company of Royal +Irish that had crossed the Scheldt with Haig. As Larry Shea had put it on +the day of their arrival, they "made as grand leavin's as one could expect +under the circumstances." The ambulances that had brought them, along with +the additional seven who had gone west, had pivoted wrong at one of the +crossroads, so that the American Military Hospital No. 10 had fallen heir +to them instead of the B. H. T. It is recorded that even the chief showed +consternation when he looked them over, and Larry, catching the look and +being the only man conscious at the time, snorted indignantly: + +"Well, sir, if ye think we're a mess, ye should have seen the Fritzies we +left behind. Furninst them we're an ordther of perfectly decent lads." And +Larry had crumpled up into a grinning unconsciousness. + +It was Larry who led the singing; it was Larry now who, with an eye on the +one silent figure in the ward and another on the nurse in the doorway, +threw a wheedling remark to hold her with them a moment "by way of +heartenment to Jamie." "Wait a bit, miss. Patsy MacLean was just askin' +were ye a good hand at layin' a ghost?" + +Before Sheila could answer, Harrigan, an Irish-American orderly, stepped +over the threshold and shook a fist at 7-A. + +"Aw, cut it out. The way this bunch works Miss O'Leary makes me sick. +Don't cher know she hasn't been off duty for twenty-four hours? Let her +go, can't cher?" + +Johnnie O'Neil, from the far end of the room, smiled the smile of a +cherub. "An' don't ye know, laddie, that it's always the saints in heaven +that has the worst sinners on their hands? 'Tis jealous ye are, not being +wicked enough to get a bit more of her attention yerself." + +Sheila smiled impartially at them both, and with a parting promise of +dressings to come she hurried off. Ward 7-A settled itself to wait for the +worst and the best that the day had to offer. The room was a very small +one, and the thirteen cots barely crowded into it, with space at the foot +for Jamie O'Hara's wheel-chair to go the length and turn. They had been +kept together by Sheila's urgent plea that they should be given a ward to +themselves instead of scattering them through the larger wards, and it is +doubtful if in all the war a more quietly merciful act had been executed. +Not one of the thirteen but would have scorned to show any sign of +dependence on the others, yet intuitively the girl had guessed what they +would be able to give one another in the matter of spiritual succor. The +way they continually hectored and teased, matched wits and good humor, as +they had matched strength and daring in the old fighting-days before the +hospital, was meat and drink to the souls struggling for dominance over +mutilated bodies. United, they were men; separated--Sheila had often +shuddered to think what pitiful, pain-tortured beings they might have +been. + +When she returned to the ward the chief was with her, and their combined +arrival brought forth a prolonged, fortissimoed wail shammed forth in good +Gaelic fashion. Larry's great hairy arm shot out, and a vindictive +forefinger was wagged in the direction of the third cot. + +"Ye'd best begin with Patsy MacLean this day. He hasn't been laid out +first in a fortnight." + +The others, taking the words from Larry's tongue, chorused, "Aye, begin +wi' Patsy, the devil take him!" + +"Why the devil? Wouldn't Fritzie do as well?" The chief smiled indulgently +upon them all. + +"'Tis a case for the devil, this time. Tell the colonel what you were +putting over us last night," Michael Kenney, lance-corporal, growled +through an undercurrent of chuckle. + +Patrick MacLean, the color-sergeant, grinned as he reached out a welcoming +hand to both surgeon and nurse. He was a prime favorite with them, as with +his own lads. When pain wrestled for the upper hand, when things went +wrong, moods turned black, or nights stretched interminably long and +unendurable, Patsy could always turn the trick and produce something so +absorbingly interesting or ridiculous that the pain and the long nights +were forgotten. How well Sheila remembered that first time they had +dressed his wounds! The muscles had stood out on his arms like whipcords; +sweat poured down his face. He fainted twice, each time coming round to +drawl out his story in that unforgetable Irish way: + +"We were dthrivin' them afore us like sheep, all so tame an' sociable I +was forgettin' where I was. Somehow the notion took me I was back on the +moorlan' drivin' the flocks for my father, when a Fritzie overhead drops a +bomb on our captain.... It spatters the mud in my eyes somethin' terrible, +an' when I rubs them clean again the machine-guns were cacklin' all round +us like a parcel o' hens layin' eggs; we'd stumbled on a nest of them. +Holy Pether, I was mad! I was for stickin' the colors in the muzzle o' one +o' their bloody guns, an' I sings out as I rush 'em, 'Erin go bragh!' Then +down I goes. Culmullen, there, comes staggerin' up. 'Take the colors,' +says I. 'I've got no legs to carry 'em on.' 'I can't,' says he; 'I've got +no arms to shoulder 'em.'... A bit aftherwards I sees Jamie--he's second +in command--come runnin' up wild, but his arms an' legs is still in pairs, +so I shouts afore things go black, 'The colors, Jamie, ye take the +colors.' 'Wish to God, Patsy, I could,' says he, 'but I can't see.'... +Faith, weren't we a healthy lot, miss? An' we the Royal Irish!" He had +grinned then as he was grinning now. + +Culmullen in the next cot, a schoolmaster from Ballygowan, raised his +head. "Miss O'Leary, Patsy's the worst liar in Ulster. Ye might keep that +in mind whenever he has anything to tell. If I had had the schooling of +ye, I'd have thrashed the thruth into ye, ye rascal! Will ye kindly lean +over and brush the hair out of my eyes, and if ye tickle my nose this +time, I'll have Larry thrash ye for me the instant he's up." + +The color-sergeant pulled himself over and gently brushed back the +straggling hair. "Such a purty lad!" he murmured, sarcastically. "What's +an arm or two so long's the Fritzies didn't ruin one o' them handsome +features--nor shorten the length o' your tongue." + +"What is it this time, Sergeant?" Sheila spoke coaxingly as she bent to +the dressings. + +"Well, ye know I've said from the beginnin' 'twas no ways natural havin' +them legs o' mine twistin' an' achin' same as if they were still hangin' +onto me. I leave it to both of yez. If they'd been anyways decent legs an' +considerate o' the kindness I've always shown them, wouldn't they have +quit pestherin' me when they took Dutch leave?" + +"Stop moralizin'," shouted Johnnie O'Neil, the piper from Antrim. "Get +down to the p'int o' your tale." + +"It hasn't any point: it's flat," growled the lance-corporal. + +Unembarrassed, Patsy MacLean went on: "I was a-thinkin' this all over +again last night, a-listenin' to the ambulances comin' in, when a breath +o' wind pushes the door open a bit, an' in walks, as natural as life, the +ghost o' them two legs. 'Tis the gospel truth I'm tellin' ye. They walked +a bit bowlegged, same as they always did, straight through the door an' +down the ward. An' the queer thing is they never stopped by Larry's cot or +Casey Ryan's--the heathen!--but came right on to me." + +"Faith, they wouldn't have had the nerve to stop. The leg Casey lost was +as straight as a hazel wand, same as mine." Larry snorted contemptuously. + +"The two of yez are jealous." Patsy lowered his voice to a mock whisper +and confided to the chief and Sheila, "They know they'll have to be buyin' +a good pair o' shoes an' throwin' the odd away, while I'll be sayin' +enough from the shoes I'll never have to be buyin' to keep mysel' in +cigars for the rest o' my life." + +"But Patsy's wondtherin' can ye lay the ghost, miss?" Timothy Brennan, who +had lost the "cream of his face," repeated the question Larry had asked a +half-hour before. The rest of the ward tittered expectantly. + +"Let me see--" The Irish blood in her steadied the nurse's hands, while +she drew her lips into quizzical solemnity and winked at Culmullen over +her shoulder. "I always thought it was restlessness that sent ghosts +walking. Maybe these have come back, looking for their boots." + +The titter broke into a roar of delight. "Thrue for ye!" shouted +Parley-voo Flynn, pounding the arm of Jamie's chair with his one fist. +"All ye've got to do, Patsy, is to be puttin' your boots beside your chair +onct more, an' them legs will scrooch comfortably into them an' never +haunt ye again. The lass is right, isn't she, Jamie?" + +Eleven pairs of eyes and an odd one shifted apprehensively from the lad +who was being dressed to the lad in the wheel-chair, and the eyes all +showed varying degrees of trouble, uncertainty, and sorrow. They had a way +of searching Jamie out in this fashion many times a day, while he sat very +still, with eyes bandaged and lips that never flinched but never broke to +a smile. + +Larry shook a hairy fist at Parley-voo and answered the question himself: + +"Of course she's right! Isn't she always? An' who but a heathen would be +doubtin' the manners of a ghost?" + +"Aye, but where will I be gettin' the boots?" Patsy made a sour grimace. +"Me own purty ones had Christian burial somewhere back in that tremendous +mud-puddle. Would any gentleman, now, still havin' two good legs, give me +the loan of his boots for one night? Size eleven, if I don't disremember." + +"That's Teig's number. Lend him yours, Teig, like a good lad, or we'll +never be rid o' them ghosts." Mat O'Shaughnessy, at the other end of the +line, fairly shook with the depth of his wail. + +Teig Magee chuckled. He had lost an inch or so of back and was waiting the +glad day when they could mend it with an inch or so of shin-bone; in the +mean time he was paralyzed. "Say, Docthor, would ye mind reachin' undther +my pillow an' fetchin' them out for me? The lads have a way of forgettin' +my hands are temporarily engaged. Thank ye. Ye can have them, Patsy, but +ye'll have to go bail your ghosts won't up an' thramp off wi' them +entirely." + +It ended by the schoolmaster giving security--a half-crown with a bullet +hole through it. Sheila was appointed custodian, and the boots were placed +beside the color-sergeant's cot "against the comin' night." + +As the chief and Sheila passed on from cot to cot, the spirits of Ward 7-A +never wavered. Johnnie, who had piped the lads into battle and out for +four years, and who daily rejoiced over the fact that Fritzie had shown +the good sense to take a foot instead of a hand, told them that he was in +rare luck now, for there would be time to make wee Johnnie at home the +grandest piper in all of Ireland--an honor he could never have promised +himself before. + +There was "Bertha" Milliken, named for the big gun he had put out of +commission and the gun crew he had captured. He had been given the V. C. +for that. His pet joke was telling how the Fritzies grudged him its +possession by shooting it away on the Scheldt along with a good bit that +was under it. The nurse and surgeon handled "Bertha" very carefully; there +was no knowing just what was going to happen to him. Casey Ryan had lost +the odd of 'most everything the Lord had started him with, as he put it. +An eye, an ear, a lung, and a leg were gone, and he was beating all the +others at getting well. Mat O'Shaughnessy had it in the "vital." He was +continuously boasting that it was the handiest place of all, and if it +didn't get him he'd be the only perfect specimen invalided home. + +"Parley-voo," the only one of them who essayed French, had wounds many but +inconspicuous. He was given to counting a hypothetical fortune that might +be his if the Empire would give him a shilling for every time he had been +hit. Joseph Daly and "Gospel" Smith, the one Methodist, carried head +wounds, while "Granny" Sullivan, the oldest, wisest, and most comforting +of the company, had one smashed hip and a hole through the other, "the +devil of a combination." Never had the atmosphere of 7-A been keener or +spicier. Jamie alone sat still and silent. + +Jamie was the last to be dressed, and because there was little to do the +chief slipped away and left him to Sheila. As the nurse passed from Mat's +cot to the wheel-chair, eleven pairs of eyes and an odd one followed her. +A hush fell suddenly on the ward. The lads never intended this should +happen, but somehow, at the same time everyday, the silence gripped them, +and they seemed powerless to stay it. It was "Granny" Sullivan who first +threw it off. + +"'Tis a grand day outside, Jamie. Maybe ye're feeling the sun, now, comin' +through the window?" + +The nurse had lifted the bandage from the eyes. There was nothing there +but empty sockets, almost healed. One could hear the quick intake of +breath from the watching twelve, while every face registered an agony it +had scorned to show for its own disablement. But for Jamie, "the singing +lad from Derry" as they lovingly called him, it was different. They could +face their own conditions with amazing jocularity, but they writhed daily +under the torment of Jamie's. They could brave it no better than could +he. For to put eternal darkness on the lad who loved the light, who would +sit spellbound before the play of colors in the east at dawn or the flash +of moonlight across troubled water, who could make a song out of the smile +of a child or the rhythm of flying birds in the sky, that was damnable. An +arch-fiend might have conceived it, but where was God to let it happen? A +crippled Jamie without an arm or a leg was endurable--that cried out for +no blasphemy--but a Jamie without eyes--God in heaven, how could it be! + +The face of the singing lad was the face of a dreamer, as exquisite as a +piece of marble that might have been fashioned by Praxiteles for a sun +god. Since the battle on the Scheldt it had become a white mask, shorn of +all dreams. Almost it might have been a death-mask for the soul of Jamie +O'Hara. It showed no response now when "Granny" spoke; only the lad's +hands fluttered a moment toward the window, then dropped heavily back into +his lap. + +"Aye, maybe I feel it." The voice was colorless and tired. "I can't be +remembering clear sunlight any more. The last days of the fighting, smoke +was too thick in the sky, or the rains fell." + +Eleven pairs of eyes and one odd one cast about for some inspiration. +"Sure, think o' somethin' pleasanter nor cannon smoke an' rain. Think +o'--" "Granny" floundered for a moment, then gave up in despair. + +"That's all I see when I look up. When I look down, it's worse--an +everlasting earth, covered with mud and dying men!" Jamie shivered. + +Larry struggled out of his torment. "I say, Jamie, don't ye mind the song +ye were makin' for us the day we fell back from Cambrai? 'Twas an Irish +one, full o' the sun an' the singin' birds of Donegal. Wi' the Fritzies +risin' like a murdtherous tide behind us, 'twas all that kept the heart in +us that day. Ye say it for Miss O'Leary. Sure, ye've never said a song for +her yet." + +Jamie shook his head. "I'm sorry, lad; I've lost it. I was making so many +songs those days--ye couldn't be expecting a body to carry them all about +in his head. Now could ye?" The lips tried bravely to smile, and failed +again. + +But Larry grinned triumphantly. "Sure 'Granny' has it wrote down. He +showed it to me once. Fetch it, 'Granny,' an' let Jamie be re--" He broke +off, aghast; the lads about him were staring in absolute horror. Only the +singing lad showed nothing. He might not have heard, or, hearing, the +words were meaningless. + +So Sheila took matters into her own hands. She covered the eyes with fresh +gauze, wrapped Jamie up, and bundled him out in his chair to Harrigan with +the remark that the day was too fine to miss and there was more of it +outside the hospital than in. She watched until she had seen Harrigan take +him to a sunny, wind-sheltered corner of the gardens, and then she came +back to 7-A. She was thinking of Peter Brooks, her man at the front, and +she was trying to fathom with all her heart what manner of healing she +would give had Peter come back to her as Jamie O'Hara had come. She closed +the door of the ward behind her and faced the twelve. + +"Lads, what are we going to do for Jamie?" + +Larry groaned out loud. It was the first luxury of expression he had +indulged in since Jamie had been wheeled out. "Aye, what are we goin' to +do? That's what every man of us has been askin' himself since--since he +knew." + +"We act like a crowd o' half-wits, a-thryin' to boost his spirits a bit, +an' all the time he grows whiter an' quieter." Patsy turned his head away; +his lips were twitching. + +"Aye, that's God's truth." "Bertha's" hoarse croak was heavy with despair. +"Ye can see for yourself, miss, it's noways nat'ral for Jamie--that's the +worst of it. It's been Jamie, just, that always put heart back in us when +things went blackest. Wasn't it him that made it easy goin' for them that +went west? Can one of us mind the time he wasn't ready with a song to +fetch us over the top, or through the mud--or straight to death, if them +was the orders? No matter how loud the guns screeched, we could always +hear Jamie above them." + +"We could hear him when we couldn't have heard another sound," Culmullen +mumbled. + +"Gospel" Smith raised a bandaged head and leveled piercing eyes at Sheila. +"You know what the Gospel says about the stars singing in the morning--all +together like? Well, Jamie was the lad who could outsing them. You know +how it feels at that gray, creepy hour o' dawn, when a man's heart jumps +to his throat and sticks there, and his hands shake like a girl's? Often's +the time we'd be waiting orders to attack just like that. The stars might +have shouted themselves clear o' the sky, for all the good they'd have +done us; but Jamie was different. He'd make us a couplet or a verse to +sing low under our breath, something you could put your teeth into. And +when the orders came our hearts were always back where the Lord had put +them." + +"Granny" Sullivan plucked nervously at his blanket. "An' now, when we want +to hearten him, we're hurtin' instead. Seems as if the devil took hold of +our tongues an' spilled the wrong words off." + +"Shall I tell you what I would try to do, if I were one of you Irish lads +who had fought with him?" Sheila's face was as drawn as any of the twelve. + +"In God's name tell us!" Johnnie, the piper, spoke as reverently as if he +were at mass. + +"You heard what he said just now about seeing nothing but mud and dying +men? Well, that's the trouble. He can't see any longer things he loves, +the things he has always carried in his heart. All the beautiful memories +have been lost, and all he has left are the horrors of those last days. +He's got nothing left to make into songs any more. Don't you see? You've +got to bring that back to him, that power to see--here." The girl's hand +pressed her heart. + +"Aye, but how?" Patsy asked it breathlessly. + +"Bring him back his memories--memories of Ireland, of the things he loved +best to sing about. You have eyes; make him see." + +A hush fell on Ward 7-A. Then Timothy Brennan muttered as a man alone: +"'Tis the words of a woman. God's blessin' on her!" + +All through the day there rang through Sheila's ears the last words Jamie +had said to her that morning. He had turned his face back, as Harrigan had +wheeled him away, to answer her "All right, Jamie?" with "As right as ever +I'll be. Do ye know, the O'Haras are famous for their long living? My +grandfather lived to be ninety-eight, and his father to be over a hundred. +That leaves me seventy-five years, maybe. Seventy-five years! And already +I'm fearin' the length of a day." She was still hearing them when she came +back to the ward at day's end to find Jamie in his old accustomed place by +the window. His face was as masklike as ever, and Larry was talking: + +"Sure, I mind often an' often how the neighbors used to tell me if I'd lie +asleep with my ear to a fairy rath I'd be hearin' their music an' seein' +their dancin'. But I never did. But I saw a sight as grand, the flight o' +the skylark at ring-o'-day. Many's the time I've seen them leave the marsh +an' go liltin' into the blue." + +"And the lilting!" Culmullen closed his eyes the better to recall it. "I +mind the last time I heard one. The sky was turned orange, and the lough +turned gold. The marsh was glistening with mist, and out of the reeds +where her nest was she flew. It was like a feathered bundle of song thrown +skyward." + +"Aye, what a song!" Johnnie, the piper, spoke with ecstasy. "Hark! I can +make it." He puckered his lips, and through them came the sweet, lilting +notes of the lark's matin song. + +"Make it again." Jamie was leaning forward in his chair, his hands +gripping the arms. + +Again the piper whistled it through, and then again and again. A smile +brushed Jamie's lips, and the others, watching, breathless, saw. + +"What is it?" asked "Granny," softly. + +"Naught. Only for the moment I was thinking I could be smelling the dew on +the bogs, yonder. Can ye pipe for the blackbirds, Johnnie?" + +And Johnnie piped. + +So a new order of things was established in Ward 7-A, and as heretofore +the lads had vied in witty derision of their calamities they vied now with +one another in telling tales of Ireland. Each marshaled forth his dearest, +greenest memory, clothed in its best, to fill the ears and heart of Jamie +O'Hara. Sometimes he smiled, and then there was a great, silent rejoicing +among the twelve; sometimes he asked for more, and then tongues tripped +over one another in mad effort to furnish forth a memory more wonderful +than all that had gone before. But more often he sat still and white, as +if he heard nothing. And in the midst of it all, as the lads drew each +day nearer to health, Sheila noted a new uneasiness among them. It was +Larry who spoke the trouble while the nurse was doing his dressings. He +whispered it, so the others should not hear. + +"By rights we don't belong here. Well, they'll be movin' us soon as we're +mended, won't they?" + +The nurse nodded. + +"Invalided home. Ye know what that means?" + +Again the nurse nodded. + +"Mind ye, there's been never a word dropped atween us, but we're all +fearin' it like--" Larry rubbed his sleeve over his mouth twice before he +went on. "While we've got Jamie to think about, we can manage, but when +he's packed off somewheres--to learn readin' an' writin' for the +blind--an' we're scattered to the four winds o' Ireland, we'll be +realizin' for the first time what we are, just. Then what are we goin' to +do? I ask ye it honest, miss." + +And honestly Sheila answered, "I don't know." + +A day later "Granny" whispered over his dressings: "Faith there's a shadow +creeping over the sill. Can't ye be feeling it?" And the color-sergeant's +spirits failed to rise that day at all. + +Yet for all their fears the inevitable day came upon them unawares and +caught them, as you might say, red-handed. Sheila had stolen a half-hour +from rest and was sitting with them, listening to Casey Ryan, the Galway +lad, tell of the fishing in Kilkieran Bay. + +Larry took the words out of his mouth. "'Twill be the proud day for us all +when we cast our eyes on Irish wather again, whether 'tis in Dublin Bay or +off the Skerries." + +"Aye, and smelling the thorn bloom and hearing the throstles sing!" +"Granny's" rejoicing followed on the heels of Larry's, while he shook his +fist at him in warning. + +Larry threw a helpless look at Jamie and sank back on his pillow, while +Patsy roared his ultimatum: "I'd a deal sight rather hear a throstle sing +than see all the bloody wather in the world. Larry's fair mad about wather +ever since he went dirty for a fortnight at Vimy." + +"Sure, the thing I'm most wantin'," croaked "Bertha," "is to hear the wind +in the heather again, deep o' the night. There isn't a sweeter sound than +that, so soft an' croony-like." + +"Yes, an' I'll be wantin' to hear the old cracked voice o' Biddy Donoghue +callin' cockles at the Antrim fair. Faith, she's worth thravelin' far to +be hearin'. An' think o' gettin' your tooth on a live cockle!" Johnnie +moistened his lips in anticipation as he broke forth in a falsetto: + + "Cockles--good cockles--here's some for your dad, + An' some for your lassie--an' more for your lad." + +Amid the appreciative chuckle of the listeners, the door of Ward 7-A +opened and the chief stood on the threshold. He smiled as a man may when +he has a hurting thing to do and grudges the doing of it. He saluted the +remnants of Company--of the Royal Irish: + +"Orders, lads. You'll be leaving to-morrow for--Blighty." + +There was nothing but silence, a silence of agony and apprehension, until +Patsy whispered, "Leavin' _together_, sir?" + +"I--hope so." + +"Thravelin'--the same?" It was Timothy Brennan this time. + +"I don't know." + +"Will we be afther makin' the same hospital yondther--do ye think?" It +took all Larry's fighting soul to keep his voice steady. + +"I--It isn't likely." + +"Thank ye, sir." + +That was all. The chief left, and Sheila sat on in the stillness of Ward +7-A, wondering wherein lay the value of theories when in the face of the +first crucial need one sat stunned and helpless. The mask of good spirits +had dropped from the lads like a camouflaged screen; behind it showed the +naked, bleeding souls of twelve terror-stricken men. For Jamie's mask was +still upon him. If the orders had brought any added misery to him, no one +could have told. + +As Sheila looked into their faces and saw all that was written there, she +gripped her hands behind her and tried to tell them what she had thought +out so clearly in the operating-room days and days before. But the message +she had thought was hers to give had somehow become meaningless. What +guarantee had she to make that their lives would go on being vital, +necessary to the big scheme of humanity? How could she promise that out +of their share in the war and the price they had paid would be wrought +something so fine, so strong and eternal, that the years ahead must needs +hold plenty for their hearts and souls? She could not get beyond the +realization that it was all only theory, the theory of one glowingly +healthy mind in a sound body. If such a promise could be given at all, it +must not come from such as she; if it was to bear faith, it must be spoken +by one who had gone through the crucible as they had gone through--and +come out even as they had come. + +She looked at Jamie. If Jamie had only had eyes to catch the meaning of +the thing she was trying to say! If he who had sung courage into their +hearts in the old days could sing it once again! A message from Jamie +would bring it home. + +But there was nothing in that blank, white face Sheila could reach. He +seemed as he had seemed from the beginning, a soul apart, so wrapped in +its own despair that no human cry of need could shake it free. In +desperation she looked at Larry. His eyes were closed; his face had gone +almost as white as Jamie's. Patsy was gazing at the ceiling; the veins on +his arms stood out as they had on that first day when he had fainted twice +from the pain of his dressing. Down the line of cots the nurse's eyes +traveled, and back again. Every lad was past speaking for another; each +lay transfixed with his own personal fear. + +The minutes seemed intolerable. The silence grew heavy with so much +muffling of despair. Sheila found herself praying that the men would +groan, cry out, curse, anything to break the ghastly hush. Then suddenly +"Bertha" propped himself as best he could on an elbow and croaked: "For +the love of Mary, miss, can't ye cram us with morphine the night? 'Twould +save the British Empire a few shillin's' expense and them at home a deal +o' misery." + +And the color-sergeant choked out, "Aye, in God's mercy send us west, +along wi' them lucky seven that has gone already!" + +Without knowing why she did it, Sheila reached over and gripped one of +Jamie's hands. "Help, can't you?" she whispered. The late afternoon sun +was shining through the window back of him. The glory of it was full on +his face, so that every lad in the ward saw plainly the smile that crept +into the lips, a tender, whimsical smile that belonged to the Jamie of +old. And the deep, vibrating voice was the voice of the Jamie of fighting +days. + +"Patsy, ye rascal! I'm thinking it was like yourself to come breaking into +the first song I've had on my lips in a month. You've nearly ruined it for +me, lad." + +Amazement, incredulity, thanksgiving swept over the faces like puffs of +wind over young wheat. Unnoticed, Sheila turned to the window and wept a +scattering of tears that could no longer be held back. Jamie pulled +himself out of the wheel-chair and found his way down the space at the +foot of the cots to the door. He was very straight, and his head was high. + +"Just a minute, lads." He dug his hands deep into his pockets. "Before I +give ye the song I've made for ye, there's something I have to be saying +first. Miss O'Leary was right when she said a man has more than one pair +of eyes to see with. He can see grand with his heart--if he's shown the +way. That's what I have to thank ye for this day, the wiping of my memory +clean of those last days, and the showing me how to see anew. Ye've given +Ireland back to me with her lark songs, her blue, dancing water, her +wind-brushed heather like a purple sea. Ye've made the world beautiful for +me again, and ye've given me the heart to sing." + +He stopped a minute and smiled again. "I was thinking all this when the +chief came in, and after that I was so busy with the song that sprang into +my mind that I came near forgetting the lot o' ye. If that rascal Patsy +hadn't interrupted me, faith, I might have made the song longer." + +Sheila turned back from the window. There was a grin on the face of every +lad, and on the face of Jamie was the look of a man who had found his +dreams again. The song being new to his tongue, he gave it slowly: + + "They say the earth's a bit shot up--well, we can say the same, + But, praise to every lad that's fought, the scars they show no shame. + And for those who have prayed for us--why, here's an end to tears. + Sure, God can do much healing in the next handful of years. + + "So, Johnnie, set your chanter and blow your pipes full strong, + And, Larry, raise your voice again and lead our marching song. + Let Mac unfurl the colors--till they sweep yon crimson west, + For we're still the Royal Irish, a-fighting with the best." + +And that is precisely the way they went when they left the American +Military Hospital No. 10 the next morning. The color-sergeant led. Jamie +walked beside the stretcher to give a hand with the staff. Johnnie sat +bolt upright, bolstered with many pillows, to enable him to get a firm +grip on the pipes, and he skirled the "Shule Aroon" as he had never +skirled before. Larry's voice again boomed in the lead, and every man in +the hospital that had breath to spare cheered them as they passed. And for +every one who saw or heard the going of the Royal Irish, that day, was +left behind a memory green enough to last till the end of time. + + + + +Chapter VIII + +INTO HER OWN + + +The last big drive was on. Somewhere on the road between what had been the +line of defense and what was the line of farthest advance rumbled a +hospital camion with its nose to the war trail like an old dog on a fresh +scent. In the camion sat Sheila O'Leary, late of the old San and later yet +of the American Military Hospital No. 10. She was in field uniform; a pair +of the chief's own boots were strapped over two pairs of woolen stockings. +She was contemplating those boots now with a smile of rare contentment +that showed its inwardness even in the gray light of early morning. + +"Never thought I should step into the shoes of a great surgeon. They ought +to pass me through to the front if everything else fails, don't you +think?" + +The chief eyed her quizzically. "They'll carry you as far as you'll care +to go and for as long as you'll stand. What's troubling me is what your +man will say when he knows?" + +"Who--Peter?" Sheila's smile deepened. "He'll understand; he'll be glad. +Something both of us will remember always, something big to share. Oh, I +know it's going to be life and death, heaven and hell, rolled into a +minute, but I wouldn't be missing this chance--" She broke off suddenly, +and when she spoke again there was a great reverence in her voice. "I feel +as the littlest angel might have felt if God had asked him to be at the +Creation." + +"Rather different, this." Griggs, the chief's assistant, spoke. There were +just the three of them in the ambulance. + +"Not so very. It's another big primal happening, the hurling together of +elemental things and impulses and watching something more solid and +lasting come out. A new heaven and a new earth." + +"What we see coming out won't be so solid or so lasting. We may not be +ourselves." Griggs was a pessimist, a heroic one, with an eye ever keen +for the grimmest and most disappointing in life and a courage to meet it +squarely. + +The chief's glance brushed him on its way to the nurse; Griggs's share of +it was plainly commiserating. "And I say, blessed be those who shall +inherit it. But, girl, this doesn't settle the question of your man. I've +had to duck orders a bit to bring you along. Women aren't wanted at the +front. He may hold it up stiff against me for it." + +"But I can help. Any woman who can stand it will be needed. They shouldn't +bar us out. That's all Peter'll think about. Don't worry." + +There was no question in the girl's mind as to the wisdom or right in her +coming--or Peter's verdict in the matter. He would not fuss over this +plunge into danger any more than he had misunderstood her giving away her +wedding back at the old San and coming over at the eleventh hour. The last +words Peter had said when he left her for the front came back with +absolute distinctness: + +"Whatever happens, do what you think best, go where you feel you must go. +Don't bungle your instincts. I'd trust them next to God's own." + +No, Peter Brooks would have been the last person to deny her this chance, +and so all was well. She was wondering now if by some rare good luck she +might stumble on Peter at the front. She had not seen him since they +separated the day after their arrival in France. A few penciled +hieroglyphics had come from time to time telling her all was well with +him. She had written when she could and when she knew enough of an address +to risk a letter reaching him. But Peter, after the manner of all +correspondents, was like Hamlet's ghost--here, there, and gone; and Sheila +had no way of knowing if her letters had ever reached him. + +For weeks it had seemed to the girl that her love had lain dormant, hushed +under the pressure of work. So vital and eternal were both love and +happiness that in her zeal for perfect, impersonal service she had thrust +them both out of sight, as one might put seeds away in the dark to wait +until planting-time, assured of their fulfilment when the time came. But +now in the lull between the work at the hospital and the work that would +soon claim her again she discovered that in some inexplicable manner love +would no longer be shut out. She was sick for the man she loved. + +A funny little wistful droop took Sheila's lips, and her chin quivered for +an instant. It was so unlike the girl that the chief, seeing, reached +across and laid a hand on her knee. + +"What is it? Not sorry?" + +"Never. But I was thinking how pleasantly easy it might have been to stay +behind at the old San. Peter and I'd be climbing that mythical hilltop of +ours, with a home of our own at the end of the climb--if we'd stayed +behind." + +"Well, why didn't you?" + +The nurse laughed softly. Griggs volunteered to answer for her. + +"Because you were a fool, like a lot of the rest of us." + +"Because--oh, because of that queer something inside us all that pries us +away from our determinations just to be contented and happy all our lives +and hustles us somewhere to do something for somebody else. Remember in +the old fairy-tales they were always cleaning the world of dragons or +giants or chimeras before they married and lived happy ever after." + +"Bosh! Remember that it's only in the fairy-tales that the giants or the +monsters don't generally get you, and you get an epitaph instead of a +wedding. You romantic idealists make me sick," and Griggs snarled openly. + +Their mobile unit was held up that day in a little ruined city. Only one +other dressing-station was there, and the wounded were passing through so +fast and so wounded that many could not go on. So they set up another +dressing-station and worked through the night until the stars went out and +their orders came to hurry on. They caught two hours' sleep and by noon of +another day they were as close to the front as a hospital unit could go. + +A dugout had been portioned out to them, and while orderlies brought in +their equipment and the surgeons were coupling up lights and sterilizer, +Sheila started to get a hot meal in two sterilizing basins. The nurse was +just drawing in her first breath of real war. Before she had time to +exhale it a despatch-bearer climbed down into the dugout and handed an +order to the chief. It was from headquarters, and brief. The division did +not intend to have any woman's name on its casualty list. Sheila was to +be returned at once. The bearer added the information that an ambulance +was returning with wounded; she could take it. + +The chief had never seen the nurse turn so white. Her eyes spoke the +appeal her lips refused to make. He tried to put something into words to +make it easier for her, but gave it up in final despair. What was there to +say? In silence the girl put on her trench coat, jammed on her hat, and +was gone. For the first kilometer her senses were too numbed to allow for +much thinking. Mechanically she passed her canteen to one of the wounded, +readjusted a blanket over another. It was not until the division turned +loose its first barrage that day that she woke up to what was happening to +her. She was going back; she was not going to have her chance. + +The noise was terrific. It drowned everything but the mutinous hammerings +of her own heart. In the flash of an eye she changed from the Sheila +O'Leary of civilized production to a savage, primitive woman. She had but +one dominating instinct, to stand by the male of her tribe, to succor +him, fight with him, die with him. It seemed as futile a thing to try to +stay this impulse as to try to put out the burning of a prairie when the +wind blows. + +The ambulance stopped with a jerk. Something was wrong with the engine. +The driver climbed down and threw back the hood, and, unnoticed, the nurse +slipped down and passed him. When he had finished his tinkering, Sheila +was fifty rods away across the meadow. + +"Here, you, you come back!" shouted the driver. + +For answer Sheila doubled her speed. + +The driver watched her, uncertain what to do. A shell whizzed from beyond +the barrage and burst a hundred yards from the nurse. The shock threw her, +but she was up in an instant, her course changed toward some deserted +trenches. The driver hesitated no longer. He climbed back and started the +engine. + +"No use tacklin' them kind," he remarked to the empty seat beside him. +"She'll get there or she won't--but she won't turn back." + +It was nightfall when Sheila came up with what she had chosen to call "her +division." She intended to possess it in spite of the commander. An +outpost sentry challenged what he thought a wraith. His tongue fumbled the +words, "Oh, Gawd! it's a woman!" + +"Yes. Will you pass her? Lots to do." + +He looked at the red cross on her arm and smiled foolishly. "You bet there +is! Sure I'll pass you." + +She came up with the first battalion, bivouacked under a shell-riven +ridge. + +"A woman!" The first boy whispered it, and the exclamation rippled on to +the next and the next like wind in dry leaves. Remembering the exodus of +the morning, the nurse knew if she was to stay she must prove her need and +prove it quickly. Her voice was as business-like as in the old San days. + +"Dressing-station? Company's surgeon? Wounded? Doesn't matter which, only +get me some work." + +A hand slipped out of the darkness and caught her elbow. "This way, lady," +and she was drawn along the protecting shelter of the ridge. After rods of +stumbling she stumbled down irrational stairs into the same dugout she had +left that morning. She was almost as surprised as the two surgeons. + +"You're a fool," muttered Griggs. "Wait till they order me back. I'll not +be crying for purgatory twice." + +The chief smiled. "I reckon you got that S O S call I've been sending out +all day. We need help like sixty. Bichloride's under that basin. We'll be +ready for you when you've washed up. Night ahead--" His words trailed off +into an incoherent chuckling. He was wondering how the girl had managed +it. He was wondering more what the command would do when it found out. In +the mean time he was glorying in her courage; he would see she got full +measure of the work that had claimed her in spite of orders, while he +silently thanked a merciful God for providing her. + +No one questioned her right to be there that night. Wounded poured in, +flooded the dugout to capacity, were cared for, carried away, and more +flooded again. It was daybreak before a lull came, and then there were +orders to be ready to follow the battalion in an hour. So they ate a +snatch, packed, and rolled on in the wake of the Allies' conquest. + +Again it was nightfall before they caught up with their regiment. Even to +eyes as inexperienced as theirs it was easy to see it had been factored +and factored again, and not the half of it was standing. They found a +couple of regimental surgeons floundering through a sea of wounded. The +nurse had to bite her lips to keep back the cry of horror over the +apparent hopelessness of the task that lay before them. So many--and so +few hands to do it all! + +A shout went up from the men who had come through whole, when they saw +her. They were wet, covered with mud, aching in every joint and sinew, but +they forgot it all in their joyful pride over the fact that the nurse was +standing by. + +"Gosh durn it, it's our girl!" + +"Stuck fast to the old bat. Whoopee!" + +"At-a-boy! Three cheers for the pluckiest girl on the front--our girl!" +and a young giant led the cheering that sprang as one yell from those +husky throats. + +"She's all right--our girl's all right--'rah-'rah-'rah!" + +Sheila's own voice was too husky to more than whisper, as she slipped +behind the giant, "Tell them my thanks and--good luck." + +"You bet I will." + +From that instant there was no more helplessness in the feelings of Sheila +O'Leary. She felt empowered to move mountains, to make new a mangled heap +of boys. As she joined the chief she stopped to see how it was with him. +His eyes met hers, and in the flash she read there the same fighting faith +that was in her own heart. He patted her shoulder. + +"Didn't think you'd funk. Nothing like team-work when you're up against +it. Keeps you believing in the divinity of man, eh?" + +And who can tell if at times like these the power of the Nazarene does not +pass on to those who go fearlessly forth to minister in the face of death! +It would not be so strange if he had passed over innumerable battle-fields +and so anointed those who had come to succor that their task was made +easier and their burden at least bearable. + +There was no shelter for any of them that night. They worked in the open, +and volunteers came from the ranks to do what they could. The surgeons +would have scorned them, but the nurse mustered in a score or more to keep +the fires under the kettles burning, to hold supplies and lanterns, to +make coffee when the sterilizing basins could be surrendered for the +purpose; and she showed those with pocket-knives how to cut away the +blood-soaked clothing. Caked with mud herself and desperately hungry, she +dressed and comforted as she went. The scene was ghastly--Verestchagin +might have painted it--but Sheila saw none of it. It was for her a time +exalted, even for those she helped to die. There was no sting in this +death. As she passed on and on in the darkness the space about her seemed +filled with the shadowy forms of those whom God was mustering out, +peacefully, gloriously waiting His command to march into a land of full +promise. So acutely did she feel this that a prayer rose to her lips and +stayed there, mute, half through the night, that some time she might be +given the chance to make this clear for those who mourned at home, to make +them feel that death, here, held no sting. + +In the midst of it Sheila felt a heavy hand laid on her arm, and turned to +look into the face of the commander. + +"Are you the nurse I ordered back two days ago?" + +"I believe so." + +"Who ordered you back again?" + +"No one." + +"How did you come?" + +The girl laughed softly. She could not resist the memory of that flight. +"Engine went wrong and I--beat it. Don't blame the driver; he did his best +to obey orders. I joined the division last night and came on with my +chief." + +"So there's no use in ordering you back?" + +"None in the least--that is, not so long as the boys are coming in like +this." + +"How long can you stand it?" + +"As long as they can, sir." And then without rhyme or reason tears sprang +into the nurse's eyes, to her great mortification and terror. That would +probably finish her; a woman who cried had no place at the front, and the +general would dismiss her promptly and with scorn. + +But he did not. The hand that had touched her arm reached out and gripped +her hand. She caught a whimsical smile brushing his lips in the dark. + +"Good night. When you want your discharge, I'll sign it." + +He went as swiftly and silently as he had come. The nurse turned back to +her work with a sigh of relief. The regiment was hers officially now. + +The next day they made another little town. So quickly and unexpectedly +had the enemy been forced to evacuate it that there had been no time to +destroy or pillage, and the shells had somehow passed it by. The town was +full of liberated French--the young and very old--who crowded the streets +and shouted their welcome as the troops passed through. The chapel was +flung open to receive the wounded, and the hospital unit was installed +therein. + +As Sheila O'Leary crossed the threshold of the little church a strange +feeling sprang at her, so that her throat went dry and her heart almost +stopped beating. It was as if something apart from her and yet not apart +had spoken and said: "Here is where the big moment of your life will be +staged. Whatever matters for all time will happen here, and what has gone +before--the San, the hospital, everything you have felt, striven for, +believed in, and trusted--all that is but a prologue. The real part of +your life is just beginning--or--" + +Griggs broke the terror that was clutching at her. "What's the matter? +Don't you know there's a war going on and about a million wounded coming +in? There are a few hundred of them up there, lying round under the images +of the saints. The saints may bless 'em, but they won't dress 'em. The +chief's growling for you. Come along!" + +For once she was grateful to the pessimist. She tried to brush the +strangeness away as she hurried down the aisle, but it clung in spite of +her. And at the altar more strangeness confronted her. A slightly wounded +lad suddenly reached out a hand holding a crumpled paper. + +"Guess you're Miss O'Leary, ain't you? He said there wasn't much of a +chance, but what you don't expect over here is what you get. You know?" + +The incoherency was lost on Sheila. She took the crumpled paper +wonderingly and found it covered with Peter's scribbled hieroglyphics: + + BELOVED: + + The boys have been telling me about you--to think you're really with + us and standing by! It may bring its dole of horror--bound to--we all + have our turn at it. If it comes, hold to your courage and take deep + hold of that wonder-soul of yours; that will steady you. And + remember, there is peace coming, and home--yours and mine. Close your + eyes when the sights get too bad, and you'll see that blessed house + of ours on the hilltop you've chosen; you'll see the little lamp + shining us good cheer. Think of that. I'm with the other wing now, + but any day I may be shifted to yours. Until then, + + Yours, + + "P. B." + +The nurse thrust the paper into the front of her uniform, shook the hand +that had brought it to her, and passed up the steps to the work that was +waiting for her. The first day passed like a dream. Guns boomed, shells +screeched their way overhead and landed somewhere. Wounded came and went. +Many died, and a white-haired, tottering old sexton helped to carry them +away. The old palsied _abbé_ came and chanted prayers for the dying, and +some one played a "_Dies Iræ_" on the little organ. Old French mothers +stole in timorously and offered their services, the service of their hands +and emptied hearts. When they found they might help they were pathetically +grateful, fluttering down between the aisles of wounded like souls with a +day's reprieve from purgatory. They were finding panacea for their +bereavement in this care of the sons of other mothers. And as they passed +Sheila, in broken sentences, almost inarticulate, they told their sorrow: + +"Six--all gone, ma'm'selle." + +"Jean, François, Paul, and Victor--Victor the last--he fell two months +ago." + +"Four sons and four daughters--a rich legacy from my dead husband, +ma'm'selle. And I have paid it back--soul by soul--all--he has them all +now." + +So they mourned as they went their way of tender service, the words +dropping unconsciously from their quivering old lips. A few there were who +stood apart, the envied mothers with hope. Sheila learned who they were +almost from the beginning. Each had a son somewhere not reported. Old +Madame d'Arcy whispered about it as she bathed the face of the boy who +looked so much like her own. + +"Of course, ma'm'selle, my Lucien may be--I have not heard from him in +many months. It is not for me to hope too much. But I think--yes, I think, +ma'm'selle, he will come home to me when the war is over." + +And Madame Simone, who brought fresh black coffee and little cakes for +those who could eat them, trembled with the gladness of ministering to the +boys who were fighting with hers for France. "I had almost ceased to pray +when the Americans came, but now--ah, ma'm'selle, now there is hope again +in this withered breast. I even dream now of mon p'tit--the youngest of +them all. I feel the good God is sparing him for me." + +And old Isabelle, who came to scrub the floor and clean, muttered, as she +bent her willing back to the labor: "Moi, that is what I say, too. The +Lord will send my Jacques home to comfort my old age." + +As Sheila listened, it epitomized for her the tragedy of the mothers of +France, this antiphonal chorus of the mothers who had lost all and those +who had yet one son left. To the girl's mind there came in almost cruel +contrast that chorus of Maeterlinck's mothers raised in rapturous +expectancy to the unborn; she knew she was hearing now the agonized +antithesis of it. Throughout the first day it rang incessantly, until she +could have hummed the haunting melody of it. Then night came. The patches +of reds and greens and blues that had sifted through the stained-glass +window in the chancel and played all day in grotesque patches on the white +cheeks of the wounded faded alike to gray, and the nurse lit the tall wax +candles on the altar that the work might go on without stopping. + +The next day--and the next--passed much the same. There was no end to the +wounded. Griggs fainted twice the second day, and the chief and Sheila +carried the work alone for a few hours. Each of them was acutely conscious +of the strain on the other and did what he and she could to ease the +tension. For the girl her greatest comfort was in the scrap of paper +crumpled over her breast. It told her Peter was near, coming to her soon. +It seemed to transmit some of his strength and optimism. There were +moments when, but for his reassurance, the girl would have doubted every +normal, happy phase of life and acknowledged only the unending torture and +renunciation. Sometimes the horror seemed to wrap them in like an +impenetrable fog. As for the chief, it took every ounce of will and sanity +to keep him going, and he wondered how the girl beside him could brave it +through without a whimper. + +Always about them roared the great guns like the last booming of a +judgment day, and under that noise the moaning chorus of the French +mothers. When the strain reached the breaking-point Sheila closed her eyes +and looked for the light on the hilltop that Peter had promised would be +there--and there it always was. Moreover, she could feel Peter's vital +presence and the marvelous reality of his love reaching nearer and nearer +to her through the darkness. So she kept her head clear and her hands +steady and forced a smile whenever the chief eyed her anxiously. She never +failed a boy "going west." To the last breath she let him see the +radiating faith of her own soul that believed in the ultimate Love above +everything else. Those old illuminating smiles that had won for her her +nickname of Leerie never had to be forced, and they lighted the way out +for many a groping soul in that little church. And the old Frenchwomen, +watching above their prayers for the return of Louis or Charles or +Jacques, said: + +"See, for all she's so young, she knows what the mother-heart is. That is +why she feels for us. She knows how our hearts have bled." + +On the 9th of November they were still there. The division had continued +its drive, but slowly, and no orders had come for the mobile unit to go +forward. And then came one of those lulls and flush-backs which for the +moment made one almost believe that the tide of battle had turned +again--and for the enemy. With the coming of the first wounded that day +came orders to evacuate the town at once. + +At first the townsfolk would not believe, but as the muddy columns of the +first company could be seen on the outskirts, doubt gave place to +certainty, and without moan they gathered up what few belongings they +could and set their faces toward what they prayed would hold French soil. +Before the refugees had cleared the town, the shelling began, giving the +last impelling haste to their exodus. The hospital unit stayed in the +church. They got the wounded ready to be moved and waited for further +orders. They came in another ten minutes; everybody was to clear out. +Three ambulances from the east and a half-dozen from the west gathered up +the stretcher cases, while the others piled into the supply-trucks--that +is, all but the chief and Sheila. They stood in the church door with +minds for anything but going. It came to them both that, as the battalions +fell back, each would be bringing its wounded as far as it could. If there +was a place to drop them--and care waiting until a few more ambulances +could push through--many lives might be saved, and much suffering. + +The chief looked down at the girl and saw what was in her mind. Linking +his arm in hers, he muttered under his breath, "Still game, bless you!" +And then aloud: "Miss O'Leary and I have a liking for this place. We'll +stay until the next orders." + +Griggs had climbed to the footboard of an ambulance, and he faced them +with contempt. "We didn't volunteer to sit 'round and be blown to bits. +Don't be fools, you two. Come on while you've got a chance." And then, +when he saw how futile were his words: "If you haven't had enough +slaughter for one while, I have. Good-by." + +As they waved them off, the muddy column of the first company swung down +the street. It was even as they had thought--wounded were with them, and +the nurse and surgeon hurried inside to make ready. The day wound itself +out in an almost ludicrous repetition of events. Straggling companies fell +back, dropped their wounded, and went on; a few ambulances made the town, +gathered up the worst cases, and went back. Desultory shells picked off +their belfry, smashed a group of monuments in the cemetery, and wiped out +a street of houses not far away. And every half-hour or so came the orders +to evacuate at once. Regiment after regiment fell back through the city; +the rest of the division must have passed to north and south of it. By +nightfall nearly all had passed and the town was left like a delta between +two dividing currents. + +"They'll begin shelling in earnest by midnight. We'll get barrages from +both sides. We won't know it, but this town's going to be wiped off the +map to-night." The chief said it in his most matter-of-fact voice, but his +face showed gray. + +The girl hushed him. "The boys might hear, and they've been through so +much. There's no harm in letting them hope." She turned back to the +emergency kettle she was stirring. They were making cocoa and feeding the +boys out of the chalice-cups from the altar. To the nurse it seemed like +passing the last communion, and though her hands kept steady, her heart +seemed drained. + +Out of the noise and the gathering gloom outside came two more +stretcher-loads. The bearers whistled when they saw the red cross on the +door. They whistled harder when they pushed it open and looked inside. +"Gee! we thought all you outfits had been ordered back!" The bearers laid +down their burden on a pew, and the fore one groaned out the words. + +"We were," the chief spoke. "Sorry we didn't go?" + +"Dunno. Bet these chaps wouldn't be, though--if they knew. Don't know +whether it's any use trying; they're all but gone, Doc." The speaker +jerked his head over his shoulder and thumbed a command to the other +bearers. "Here you, Jake! You and Fritzie hustle along with yours." + +As the surgeon bent over to examine, the nurse stopped an instant to +listen, then went on feeding her boys. + +"This one's French." The chief was looking over the first stretcher. "How +did you pick him up?" + +"Got mixed up with a company of _poilus_ in the last scrap. We fought all +together." + +"Hmmmm! He'll need speed or he'll make it. Give me a hand with him, boys, +over to the table there." + +"Wait, Doc. There's another just as bad. He's--the other's a Yank." + +The spokesman again jerked his comrades into further evidence. One of the +bearers was an American, the other a captured German, slightly wounded. +Between them lay a figure in the gray uniform of a correspondent. A heavy +growth of beard made the man almost unrecognizable, but something tugged +at the chief's memory and set him speculating. He cast a furtive glance +over his shoulder toward the nurse, then lowered his voice. + +"You haven't any idea who it is, have you?" + +"Sure. He's the A. P. man that's been with our division from the first. +His name's Brooks." + +The chalice fell through Sheila's fingers and struck the altar steps with +a sharp, metallic ring. The next instant she was beside the chief, looking +down with wide, unbelieving eyes at the stretcher which held nothing +familiar but the gray uniform--and there were many men wearing the same. +It could not be. This was not the way Peter was coming back to her. In all +the days of horror, of caring for the hundreds of wounded, it had never +entered her mind that war might claim the man she loved. Her love, and the +fulfilment thereof, had stood out as the one absolute reality of life, the +thing that could not fail. This simply could not be; Peter was still far +away, but coming, supreme in his strength, invulnerable in his love and +promise to her. + +"You--don't know him?" The chief asked it hopefully. + +The girl shook her head. "He can't be--The beard--Wait." Her hand slipped +through the opening in his uniform to an inside pocket. She drew out a +flat bundle of papers, and the first glance told her all she needed to +know. There was Peter's unmistakable scribbling on the uppermost, and from +under it showed the corner of one of her letters to him. + +The chief's hand steadied her. "No time to lose, girl, but we'll pull him +through. We've got to fight for it, but we'll do it. Easy there, boys. +Take him over to the table, there, under the light." + +But Sheila O'Leary put out a detaining hand. Her eyes were no longer on +Peter; she was looking at the figure on the other stretcher. "What did you +say about that French boy?" + +"He'll have to go, poor chap! There isn't time for both. Listen, Leerie," +as a flash of pain swept the girl's face, "it's a toss-up between them +who's worse, and it's down now to a matter of minutes. It means the best +team-work we've done yet to save just your man." + +Still the girl made no move. Her eyes were turned away. In her ears was +ringing the chorus of the mothers, those waiting for Louis or Jacques or +Lucien to come home. Dear God, what was she to do? + +The chief pulled her sleeve. "Wake up, girl. There's a chance for your +man, I tell you, only in Heaven's name don't waste it! Come." + +She tried to take her eyes away from the boy, tried to shut her ears to +the cry that was ringing in them. She wanted to look at Peter and say the +word that would start the bearers carrying him to that little zone of +light about the altar where they had saved so many during those days. But +her eyes clung, in spite of her, to the white boy-face and the faded blue +uniform below it. Peter had no mother, no one but herself to face the +grief and mourn the loss of him, and the hearts of French mothers had been +drained--bled almost to the last drop? Wouldn't Peter say to save that +drop? Had she the right to shed it and spare her own heart's bleeding? The +questions filtered through her mind with the inevitableness of sands in an +hour-glass. With a cry of agony she wrenched her eyes away at last and +faced the chief. + +"We'll let Peter--wait. We'll take the boy--first." + +Dumfounded, the chief stared for the fraction of a moment; then he shook +her. "For God's sake, wake up, Leerie! You've gone through so much, your +thinking isn't just clear. Get rational, girl. You'd be deliberately +killing your man, to leave him now. You don't realize his condition, or +you wouldn't be wasting time this way. By the time we finish with the +first there'll be no chance for the second; they're both bleeding in a +dozen places. Here, boys! Help me over with Mr. Brooks." + +But Sheila put out a quick hand and held them back. "And if I put Peter +first I shall be deliberately killing the other. Don't you see? I can't do +it--Peter wouldn't wish it--it would mean--Boys, carry over the other. The +chief's going to save a lad for France." + +There was no denying her. She stood guard over Peter's stretcher until the +other had been lifted and carried away. Grimly the surgeon followed, and +Sheila turned to the two who were still holding the stretcher. + +"Would you mind putting him down there? Now, will you leave us just a +minute?" She spoke to the American, but the German must have understood, +for he led the way to the church door and stood with his back to her. + +Even the comfort of staying with Peter to the last was denied her. The +chief had said it must be team-work, the best. She mustn't waste many +seconds. She thought of the many she had helped to die, the courage a warm +grip of the hand had given, the healing strength in a smile, and her +heart cringed before this last sacrifice of giving Peter over to a +desolate, prayerless death. Hardly breathing, she slipped down and laid +her cheek to his bearded one. She could offer one prayer, that he need +never wake to know. Kneeling there, his last words came back to her almost +in mockery: + +"Don't bungle your instincts. I'd trust them next to God's own." + +Dear God, if she only could bungle them! If only they had not wrenched +from her this torturing, ghastly choice! She knew the meaning now of the +strangeness that had met her as she first crossed the threshold of the +little church. She knew why the chorus of mothers had been sung so deep +into her heart. The greatest moment of her life had come--a terrible, +soul-rending moment. And beyond it lay nothing. She choked out an +incoherent, futile prayer into the dulled ears--and left him. This--this +was her farewell to Peter Brooks--her man--her man for all time. + +The American orderly had disappeared. Sheila stumbled over to the door and +gripped the sleeve of the German. + +"If he opens his eyes"--she opened and shut her own eyes in +pantomime--"come for me, quick. Verstehen?" + +The German nodded. + +For the next half-hour, with nerves keyed to their utmost and hands +working with the greatest speed and skill they were capable of, Sheila +O'Leary's soul went down into purgatory and stayed there. Not once did she +look beyond the boy she was helping to save; not once did she let herself +think what might be happening beyond the circle of light that hemmed them +in. With all the woman courage she could muster, she was stifling every +breath of love or longing--or self-pity. If she could have killed her body +and known that when that night's work was done she would be laid in the +cemetery outside with Peter, she would have been almost satisfied. + +Suddenly she realized they had finished. The chief was repeating something +over and over again. + +"The boy is safe. You'd better lie down." + +The bearers were moving the boy back to the pews and the chief was leading +her down the steps of the chancel. But it was Sheila who guided their +steps at the bottom. She led the way toward the German and the thing he +had been asked to watch. Terror shook her. It seemed as if she could never +look at what she knew would be waiting for her, and yet no power on earth +could have held her back. + +As she reached the prisoner she saw in bewilderment a strange scattering +of things on the floor about him--forceps, some knives, a roll of gauze, +and a syringe. There was an odor of a strange antiseptic which made her +faint. She tottered and would have fallen had the German not helped the +chief to steady her. + +"He has not gained consciousness, madam. He has lost too much blood for +that." The German spoke in English. He also spread his hands in mute +apology for what he had done. "I have stanched his wounds with what poor +supplies I had with me. It has merely kept him alive. He will require more +care, better dressing." + +No one answered. Words seemed the most impossible and absurd means of +expression just then. + +The German smiled at the look Sheila gave him, and the smile was arrogant. +"You Americans have always made such a fuss over what you have been +pleased to call our brutalities. What is war if it isn't a consistent +effort to exterminate the enemy? The women are the wives of the enemy and +the breeders of more; the wounded are still the enemy--if they recover, +they fight again. But a German knows how to honor a brave act. And when +you go back, madam, you can tell how Carl Tiefmann, a German surgeon, +wounded and taken prisoner, so far forgot his Prussian creed as to spare +an enemy for a brave woman." + +He bowed and went back to the church doors. Sheila watched him go through +a trailing of mist; then she dropped through the chief's arms, +unconscious, on the floor beside Peter's stretcher. + +The Germans never reached the little town, and by some merciful stroke of +luck neither did any more of the shells. So it came to pass that on the +11th of November a very white nurse, holding fast to the hand of a man +unconscious on a stretcher, followed Peace across the threshold of the +American Military Hospital No. 10. It was days before Sheila spoke above a +husky whisper or smiled, for it was days before Peter was out of +danger, but there came a morning at last when a shaven and shorn Peter, +looking oddly familiar, opened clear, sane eyes and saw the woman he loved +bending close above him. + + +[Illustration: "He will require more care, better dressing"] + + +He gave the same old cry that he had given ages before when he had come +out of another nightmare of unconsciousness and fear, "It's Leerie--why, +it's Leerie!" + +And Sheila smiled down at him again with the old luminous smile. + +When he was sufficiently mended to look about him and take reckoning of +what had happened, he asked first for the ring that he had bought for that +long-before wedding and that he had carried ever since with him. And he +asked, second, for the chaplain. + +Sheila drew the gold chain from about her neck and dangled the ring in +front of his nose. "I took it when we cut off your coat that night, and +I've kept it handy ever since. The chaplain's handy, too. He's +promised--any hour of the day or night. Shall we send for him--now?" + +Peter nodded. + +The nurse turned to go, hesitated, and then came back to the cot. Peter +thought he had never seen her eyes so full of wonder. + +"Man o' mine, maybe you won't want me when you know I almost let you go, +that I intended to let you die to save first a French lad that came in +with you." + +Peter grinned. "Same old Leerie! Well, we're quits, sweetheart, and I'm +glad to have it off my conscience. Sort of did the same thing myself. +Rushed off in the shelling to bring in that same poor chap--he'd got a +bullet in his leg--and all the time I knew I ought to be thinking of you +first and hanging on to safety. Funny, isn't it, how something queer gets +you in the midst of it all and you do the last thing in the world you want +to do? A year or two and the whole thing will be unexplainable." + +Sheila bent over and laid her lips to Peter's. She knew that in a year--in +a century--they would still understand why they had done these things, and +she was glad they had both paid their utmost for the love and happiness +that she knew was theirs now for all time. + +Peter broke on her reverie with a chuckle. "Remember old Hennessy saying +once that he believed you would give me away with everything else--if you +thought anybody else needed me more? He'd certainly wash his hands of the +pair of us." + +"Hennessy's an old dear. I'll get the chaplain, and afterward let's send +Hennessy the first--and the best--cable he's ever had. Sort of owe it to +him, don't we?" + +Without any of the original splendor of decorations, collation, and +attire, with no one but the chaplain to marry them and the chief to bless +them, Sheila O'Leary came into her own at last. As for Peter--he looked as +Hennessy described him on the day the Brookses came home--"wi' one eye on +the thruest lass God ever made an' the other on Paradise." + + + + +AFTERWORD + + +I thought I had to have a better ending to the story than the scraps of +things I had made over from Leerie's letters and what Peter had told me. +So I went to Hennessy. + +It was midwinter. I found him cracking the ice on the pond to let the +swans in for a cold bath. + +"'Tis not docthor's ordthers," he grinned by way of explanation; "but they +get so blitherin' uneasy there's no housin' them. That's the why I give +them a bit of a cold nip onct the while--sure 'tis good threatment for us +all--an' then they settle down." + +I huddled deeper into a fur coat and tried to agree with Hennessy. + +"Did ye see Leerie, then, since she came home?" + +"Have you?" + +He shirred his lips into an ecstatic pucker and whistled triumphantly. +"Wasn't I always sayin' she'd marry the finest gentleman in the land, same +as the King o' Ireland's only daughter, and go dandtherin' off to a fine +home of her own?" + +"And she has." + +"She has that." + +"And so the story's told, Hennessy." + +"Told nothin'. Sure, it isn't half told--it isn't more than half begun, +just." + +"But you can't end a book that way. You have to end with an ending." + +"'Tis the best way to end a book, then. Haven't ye taken the lass over the +worst o' the road an' aren't ye leavin' her with the best ahead?" + +"But what is there left--to find along the way? She's found her +work--that's over with. She's found her man--that's over with. She's found +love--that's over--" + +Hennessy interrupted me almost viciously. I think he wanted to prod me +instead of the ice. "What kind of talkin' is that for a person who thries +to write books about real folk? Ye harken to me. Do ye think because love +is found 'tis over with? Sure, Leerie's only caught a whiff of it +yet--'tis naught but budded for her. By an' by there come the blossom of +it an' the fruit of it. An' when death maybe withers it for a +spell--'twill be but a winther-time promise to bud an' blossom again in +the Counthry Beyond. There's no witherin' to love like hers. An' do ye +think because she has her man found there's no pretty fancy or adventure +still waitin' them along the way? An' do ye think Leerie's work will ever +be done? Tell me that!" + +The shirr tightened into something like contempt. Hennessy looked down +upon me with undisguised pity. + +"Did ye ever know Leerie at all, at all, I'm wondtherin'--to be savin' +things like that? Don't ye know for the likes o' her there'll be +childher--Saint Anthony send them a nestful!" He crossed himself to +further the wish. "An' over an' above the time it takes tendin' an' lovin' +them an' rearin' them into the finest parcel o' youngsters God ever +made--wi' the help o' their parents--there'll be time left to light the +way for every poor, sorry soul within a hundred miles o' her. Ye can take +my word for it; an' if she never did another stroke o' work so long as she +lived--bein' Leerie, just, would be enough." + +"You may be right, Hennessy, but it's still no way to end a book." + +He came a step nearer and shook a warning finger at me. "Will ye listen? +Faith, I'm wondtherin' sometimes that folk read your books when ye have so +little sense wi' the endin' o' them. Don't ye know that a book that ends +wi' the end is a dead book entirely? An' who cares to be readin' a dead +book? Tell me that." + +His contempt changed to commiseration. I might have been Brian Boru, the +gray swan, the way he looked at me. + +"The right way of endin' is with a beginnin'--the beginnin' o' something +bigger an' betther an' sweeter. 'Tis like ye were takin' a friend with ye +up a high hill--showin' him all the pretty things along the way. Then just +afore ye get to the top--an' afore ye can look over an' see what's waitin' +beyond--ye leave him, sayin', 'Go ye alone an' find whatever ye are most +wishin' for.'" + +He stopped, pushed his hat back and pulled his forelock as if for more +inspiration. "Do ye see? Just be leavin' it to folk the world over. They +can read in a betther endin' than ye can be writin' in in a hundthred +years. An' let Leerie be as I'm tellin' ye--wi' the road windin' over the +hill an' out o' sight. Sure the two of us know what she'll be findin' +there; an' do ye think the readers have less sense than what we have?" + + +THE END + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Leerie, by Ruth Sawyer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEERIE *** + +***** This file should be named 32959-8.txt or 32959-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/9/5/32959/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/32959-8.zip b/32959-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4f2dc4d --- /dev/null +++ b/32959-8.zip diff --git a/32959-h.zip b/32959-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2afe0c7 --- /dev/null +++ b/32959-h.zip diff --git a/32959-h/32959-h.htm b/32959-h/32959-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f627662 --- /dev/null +++ b/32959-h/32959-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6805 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Leerie, by Ruth Sawyer. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; clear: both;} + + hr {width: 33%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body {margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right; font-style: normal;} + + .blockquot {margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .poem {margin-left:15%; margin-right:10%;} + + .right {text-align: right;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .smcaplc {text-transform: lowercase; font-variant: small-caps;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .bbox {border: solid 2px; color: gray; margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .title {border-style: double; border-width: 7px; border-color: #000000; margin: auto; width: 30em;} + + p.dropcap:first-letter{float: left; padding-right: 3px; font-size: 250%; line-height: 83%; width:auto;} + .caps {text-transform:uppercase;} + + a:link {color:#0000ff; text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:#6633cc; text-decoration:none} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Leerie, by Ruth Sawyer + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Leerie + +Author: Ruth Sawyer + +Illustrator: Clinton Balmer + +Release Date: June 24, 2010 [EBook #32959] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEERIE *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p> </p><p> <a name="front" id="front"></a></p><p> </p> +<div class="bbox" style="width: 413px; height: 550px;"><img src="images/ill01.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="center">Leerie</p> + +<p> </p><p> </p><p> </p> +<div class="title"> +<h1>LEERIE</h1> +<p> </p> +<h4>BY</h4> +<h3>RUTH SAWYER</h3> +<p class="center"><span class="smcaplc">AUTHOR OF</span><br />SEVEN MILES TO ARDEN, <span class="smcap">Etc.</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="smcaplc">ILLUSTRATED BY</span><br />CLINTON BALMER</p> +<p> </p> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="poem"> +<tr><td>“<i>And O! before you hurry by</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>With ladder and with light,</i></span><br /> +<i>O Leerie, see a little child</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>And nod to him to-night!</i>”</span></td></tr></table> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/title.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p> </p> +<p class="center">GROSSET & DUNLAP<br />NEW YORK PUBLISHERS</p></div> +<p class="center">Made in the United States of America</p> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Leerie</span><br /><br />Copyright 1920, by Harper & Brothers<br />Printed in the United States of America</p> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>To<br />Lamplighters—the world over</i></p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="contents"> +<tr><td>Chap.</td><td> </td><td align="right">Page</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Foreword</td><td align="right"><a href="#forward">ix</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_I">I.</a></td><td>The Man Who Feared Sleep</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_II">II.</a></td><td>Old King Cole</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_40">40</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_III">III.</a></td><td>The Changeling</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_IV">IV.</a></td><td>For the Honor of the San</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_116">116</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_V">V.</a></td><td>The Last of the Surgical</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_155">155</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_VI">VI.</a></td><td>Monsieur Satan</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_191">191</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_VII">VII.</a></td><td>The Lad Who Outsang the Stars</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_232">232</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_VIII">VIII.</a></td><td>Into Her Own</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_269">269</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>Afterword</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_306">306</a></td></tr></table> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="illustrations"> +<tr><td>Leerie</td><td colspan="2" align="right"><a href="#front"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Holding him high for Peter to admire</td><td><i>Facing p.</i></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_101">100</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>“The first look I had told me she had gone quite mad”</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_217">216</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>“He will require more care, better dressing”</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_303">302</a></td></tr></table> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><a name="foreward" id="forward"></a></p> +<h2>Foreword</h2> + +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">I like</span> to write stories. Best of all I like to write stories about people +who help the world to go round with a little more cheer and good will than +is usual. You know—and I know—there are a few who put into life +something more than the bare ingredients. They add a plum here—extra +spice there. They bake it well—and then they trim it up like an +all-the-year-round birthday cake with white frosting, angelica, and red +cherries. Last of all they add the candles and light them so that it glows +warmly and invitingly for all; fine to see, sweet to taste.</p> + +<p>Of course, there are not so many people with the art or the will to do +this, and, having done it, they have not always the bigness of heart to +pass it round for the others to share. But I like to make it my business +to find as many as I can; and when I am lucky enough to find one I pop +him—or her—into a book, to have and to hold always as long as books last +and memory keeps green.</p> + +<p>Not long ago I was ill—ridiculously ill—and my doctor popped me into a +sanitarium. “Here’s the place,” I said, “where people are needed to make +the world go round cheerfully, if they are needed anywhere.” And so I set +about to get well and find one.</p> + +<p>She came—before I had half finished. The first thing I noticed was the +inner light in her—a light as from many candles. It shone all over her +face and made the room brighter for a long time after she had left. The +next thing I noticed was the way everybody watched for her to come +round—everybody turning child again with nose pressed hard against the +window-pane. It made me remember Stevenson’s <i>Lamplighter</i>; and for many +days there rang in my ears one of his bits of human understanding:</p> + +<p class="poem">And oh! before you hurry by with ladder and with light,<br /> +O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him to-night.</p> + +<p>Before I knew it I had all the makings of a story. I trailed it through +the mud of gossip and scandal; I followed it to the highroad of adventure +and on to the hills of inspiration and sacrifice. It was all there—ripe +for the plucking; and with the good assistance of Hennessy I plucked it. +Before the story was half written I was well—so much for the healing +grace of a story and the right person to put in it.</p> + +<p>This much I have told that you may know that <i>Leerie</i> is as true as all +the best and finest things in the world are true. I am only the passer-on +of life as she has made it—spiced, trimmed, and lighted with many +candles. So if the taste pleases, help yourself bountifully; there is +enough for all. And if you must thank any one—thank <i>Leerie</i>.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Ruth Sawyer.</span></p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/decorative.jpg" alt="" /></div> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> +<h1>LEERIE</h1> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h2><a name="Chapter_I" id="Chapter_I"></a>Chapter I</h2> +<h3>THE MAN WHO FEARED SLEEP</h3> + +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">Peter Brooks</span> felt himself for a man given up. He had felt his physical +unfitness for some time in the silent, condemning judgment masked under +the too sympathetic gaze of his fellow-men; he had felt it in the +over-solicitous inquiries after his health made by the staff; and there +was his chief, who had fallen into the comfortable week-end habit of +telling him he looked first-rate, and in the same breath begging him to +take the next week off. For months past he had been conscious of the +sidelong glances cast by his brother alumni at the College Club when he +appeared, and the way they had of dropping into a contradictory lot of +topics whenever he joined a group unexpectedly showed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> only too plainly +that he had been the real subject under discussion. Yes, he felt that the +world at large had turned its thumb down as far as he was concerned, but +it had caused him surprisingly little worry until that last visit to +Doctor Dempsy.</p> + +<p>There it was as if Peter’s sensibilities concerning himself had suddenly +become acute. The doctor sounded too reassuring even for a combined friend +and physician; he protested too much that he had found nothing at all the +matter with him—nothing at all. When a doctor seems so superlatively +anxious to set a man right with himself, it is time to look out; therefore +the casual, just-happened-to-mention-it way that he finally broached the +question of a sanitarium came within an inch of knocking the last prop +from under Peter’s resolve not to lose his grip. For the first time he +fully realized how it felt to be given up, and, characteristically, he +thanked the Almighty that there was no one to whom it would really matter.</p> + +<p>For a year he had been slowly going to pieces; for a year he had been +dropping in for Dempsy to patch him up. There had been a host of miserable +puny ailments<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> which in themselves meant nothing, but combined and in a +young man meant a great deal. Of late his memory had failed him +outrageously; he had had frequent attacks of vertigo, and these of +themselves had rendered him unreliable and unfit for newspaper work. +Irresponsible! Unfit! Peter snorted the words out honestly to himself. +Under these conditions, and with no one to care, he could see no plausible +reason for trying to coax a mere existence out of life.</p> + +<p>To those who knew him best—to Doctor Dempsy most of all—his condition +seemed unexplainable. Here was a man who never drank, who never overfed, +who smoked in moderation, whose life stood out conspicuously decent and +clean against the possibilities of his environment. What lay back of this +going to pieces? Doctor Dempsy had tried for a year to find out and had +failed. To Peter, it was not unexplainable at all—he knew. Possessed of a +constitution above the average, he had forced it to do the work of a mind +far above the average, while he had denied it one of the three necessities +of life and sanity. His will and reason had been powerless to help +him—and now?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>Because he had hated himself for hiding this knowledge from the man who +had tried to do so much for him and wanted to make amends in some way—and +because it was the easiest thing, after all, to agree—he let Doctor +Dempsy pick out a sanitarium, make all arrangements, buy his ticket, and +see him off. He drew the line at being personally conducted, however. +Whether he went to a sanitarium or not did not matter; what mattered was +how long would he stay and where would he go afterward. Or would there be +an afterward? These were the questions that mulled through Peter’s mind on +the train, and, coupled with the memory of the worried kindliness on +Doctor Dempsy’s face, they were the only traveling companions Peter had. +It was not to be wondered, therefore, that as he left the car and boarded +the sanitarium omnibus he felt indescribably old, weary, and finished with +things.</p> + +<p>At first he thought he was the only passenger, but as the driver leisurely +gathered up his reins and gave a cluck to the horses a girl’s voice rang +out from the station, “Flanders—Flanders! Why, I believe you’re<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> +forgetting me.” And the next instant the girl herself appeared, suitcase +in hand.</p> + +<p>The driver grinned down a sheepish apology and Peter turned to hold the +door open. She stood framed in the doorway for a moment while she lifted +in her case, and for that moment Peter had conflicting impressions. He was +conscious of a modest, nun-like appearance of clothes; the traveling-suit +was gray, and the small gray hat had an encircling breast of white +feathers. The lips had a quiet, demure curve; but the chin was determined, +almost aggressive, while the gray eyes positively emitted sparks. The girl +was not beautiful, she was luminous—and all the gray clothing in the +world could not quench her. Peter found himself instantly wondering how +anything so vitally alive and fresh to look at could be headed for a +sanitarium with broken-down hulks like himself.</p> + +<p>She caught Peter’s eye upon her and smiled. “If Flanders will hurry we’ll +be there in time to see Hennessy feeding the swans,” she announced.</p> + +<p>There was no response. Peter had suddenly lost the knack of it, along with +other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> things. He could only look bewildered and a trifle more tired. But +the girl must have understood it was only a temporary lack, for she did +not draw in like a snail and dismiss Peter from her conscious horizon. She +smiled again.</p> + +<p>“I see. Newcomer?” And, nodding an affirmative to herself, she went +sociably on: “Hennessy and the swans are symbolical. Couldn’t tell you +why—not in a thousand years—but you’ll feel it for yourself after you’ve +been here long enough. Hennessy hasn’t changed in fifteen years—maybe +longer for those who can reckon longer. Same old blue jumper, same old +tawny corduroys; if he ever had a new pair he’s kept them to himself. And +the swans have changed less than Hennessy. If anything gets on your nerves +here—treatment, doctors, nurses, anything—go and watch Hennessy. He’s +the one sure, universal cure.”</p> + +<p>The bus swung round the corner and brought the ivy-covered building into +sight. The girl’s face grew lighter and lighter; in the shadow of the bus +it seemed to Peter actually to shine. “Dear old San,” she said under her +breath. “Heigh-ho! it’s good to get back!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>Before Peter could fathom any reason for this unaccountable rejoicing, the +bus had stopped and the girl and suitcase had vanished. Wearily he came +back to his own reason for being there, and docilely he allowed the porter +to shoulder his luggage and conduct him within.</p> + +<p>Three days passed—three days in which Peter thought little and felt much. +He had been passed about among the staff of doctors very much like a +delectable dish, and sampled by all. Half a dozen had taken him in hand. +He had been apportioned a treatment, a diet, a bath hour, and a nurse. +Looking back on those three days—and looking forward to a continuous +protraction of the same—he could see less reason than ever for coaxing an +existence out of life. Life meant to him work—efficient, telling +work—and companionship—sharing with a congenial soul recreation, +opinions, and meals—and some day, love. Well—what of these was left him? +It was then that he remembered the gray girl’s advice in the omnibus and +went out to find Hennessy and the swans.</p> + +<p>His nurse was at supper, so he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> mercifully free; moreover it was the +emptiest time of day for out-of-doors. A few straggling patients were +knocking prescribed golf-balls about the links, and a scattering of nurses +were hurrying in with their wheel-chairs. Half-way between the links and +the last building was the pond, shaded by pines and flanked by a miniature +rustic rest-house, and thither Peter went. On a willow stump emerging from +the pond he found Hennessy, as wrinkled as a butternut, with a thatch of +gray hair, a mouth shirred into a small, open ellipse, and eyes full of +irrepressible twinkles. He was seated tailor fashion on the stump, a tin +platter of bread across his knees and the swans circling about him. He +looked every whit as Irish as his name, and he was scolding and blarneying +the birds by turn.</p> + +<p>“Go-wan, there, ye feathered heathen! Can’t ye be lettin’ them that has +good manners get a morsel once in a while? Faith, ye’ll be havin’ old Doc +Willum afther ye with his stomach cure if ye don’t watch out.” He looked +over his shoulder and caught Peter’s gaze. “Sure, birds or humans, they +all have to be coaxed or scolded into keepin’ healthy, I’m thinkin’, and +Hennessy’s head<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> nurse to the swans,” he ended, with a chuckle.</p> + +<p>But there was something quite different on Peter’s mind. “Has one of the +patients—a young person in gray—been here lately? I mean have you seen +her about any time?”</p> + +<p>Hennessy shook a puzzled head. “A young gray patient, ye say? Sure there +might be a hundred—that’s not over-distinguishin’. I leave it to ye, sir, +just a gray patient is not over-distinguishin’.”</p> + +<p>Peter reflected. “It was a quiet, cloister kind of gray, but her eyes were +not—cloistered. They were the shiningest—”</p> + +<p>A chuckle from Hennessy brought him to an abrupt finish. “Eyes? Gray? +Patient? Ha, ha! Did ye hear that, Brian Boru?” and he flicked his cap at +a gray swan. “Sure, misther, that’s no patient. ’Tis Leerie—herself.”</p> + +<p>“Leerie?” The name sounded absurd to Peter, and slightly reminiscent of +something, he could not tell what.</p> + +<p>“Aye, Leerie. Real name, Sheila O’Leary—as good a name as Hennessy. But +they named her Leerie her probation year. In course she’s Irish an’ not +Scotch, an’ I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> never heard tell of a lass afore that went ’round +a-lightin’ street lamps, but for all that the name fits. Ye mind grown-ups +an’ childher alike watch for her to come ’round.”</p> + +<p>“A nurse,” repeated Peter, dully.</p> + +<p>“Aye. An’ she come back three days since, Heaven be praised! afther bein’ +gone three years.”</p> + +<p>“Three years,” repeated Peter again. “Why was she gone three years?”</p> + +<p>Hennessy eyed him narrowly for a moment. “A lot of blitherin’ fools sent +her away, that’s what, an’ she not much more than graduated. Suspension, +they called it.”</p> + +<p>“Suspension for what?”</p> + +<p>The shirring in Hennessy’s lips tightened, and he drew his breath in and +out in a sort of asthmatic whistle. This was the only sign of emotion ever +betrayed by Hennessy. When he spoke again he fairly whistled his words. +“If ye want to know what for—ye can ask some one else. Good night.” And +with a bang to the platter Hennessy was away before Peter could stop him.</p> + +<p>Alone with the swans, Peter lingered a moment to consider. A nurse. The +gray person a nurse! And sent away for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> some—some—Peter’s mind groped +inadequately for a reason. Pshaw! He could smile at the absurdity of his +interest. What did it matter—or she matter—or anything matter? For a man +who has been given up, who has been sent away to a sanitarium to finish +with life as speedily and decently as he can, to stand on one leg by a +pond, for all the world like a swan himself, and wonder about a girl he +had seen but once, in a sanitarium omnibus, was absurd. And the name +Leerie? Of course they had taken it from Stevenson, but it suited. Yes, +Hennessy was right, it certainly suited.</p> + +<p>A rustle of white skirts coming down the path attracted his attention. It +was his nurse, through supper, coming like a commandant to take him in +charge. Thirty-seven, in a sanitarium, with a nurse attendant! Peter +groaned inwardly. It was monstrous, a cowardly, blackguard attack of an +unthinking Creator on a human being—a decent human being—who might +be—who wanted to be—of some use in the world. For a breath he wanted to +roar forth blasphemy after blasphemy against the universe and its Maker, +but in the next breath he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> suddenly realized how little he cared. With a +smile almost tragically senile, he let the nurse lead him away.</p> + +<p>And all the while a girl was leaning over the sill of the little +rest-house, watching him. It was a girl with a demure mouth, a determined +chin, and eyes that shone, who answered impartially to the names of +Sheila, Miss O’Leary, or Leerie. The gray was changed for the white +uniform and cap of a graduate nurse, and the change was becoming. She had +recognized him at first with casual amusement as she watched him fill her +prescription of Hennessy and the swans, but after Hennessy had gone she +watched him with all the intuitive sympathy of her womanhood and the +understanding of her profession. Not one of the emotions that swept +Peter’s face but registered full on the girl’s sensibilities: the +illuminating interest in something, bewilderment, hopelessness, despair, +agony, and a final weary surrender to the inevitable—they were all there. +But it was the strange, haunting look in the deep-set eyes that made the +girl sit up, alert and curious.</p> + +<p>“’Phobia,” she said, softly, under her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> breath. “Not over-fed liver or +alcoholic heart, but ’phobia, I’ll wager, poor childman! Wonder how the +doctors have diagnosed him!”</p> + +<p>She learned how a few days later when Miss Maxwell, the superintendent of +nurses, stopped her in the second-floor corridor. “My dear, I should like +to change you from Madam Courot to another case for a few days. Miss +Jacobs is on now and—”</p> + +<p>“Coppy?” Sheila O’Leary broke in abruptly, a smile of amusement breaking +the demureness of her lips. “Needn’t explain, Miss Max. I see. Young male +patient, unattached. Frequent pulse-takings and cerebral massage, with +late evening strolls in the pine woods. Business office takes notice and a +change of nurse recommended. Poor Coppy—ripping nurse! If only she +wouldn’t grow flabby every time a pair of masculine eyes are focused her +way!”</p> + +<p>“But it wasn’t the business office this time.” Miss Maxwell herself smiled +as she made the statement. “It was the patient himself. He asked for a +change.”</p> + +<p>“A man that’s a man for all he’s a patient. God bless his soul!” and a +look of sudden<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> radiant delight swept the girl’s face. “What’s he here +for? Jilting chorus-girl—fatty degeneration of his check-book?”</p> + +<p>The superintendent shook her head. “He doesn’t happen to be that kind. +He’s a newspaper-man—a personal friend of Doctor Dempsy’s. Overwork, he +thinks, and for a year he’s been trying to put him back on his feet. It’s +a case of nerves, with nothing discoverable back of it so far as he can +see, but he wants us to try. Doctor Nichols has analyzed him; teeth have +been X-rayed; eyes, nose, and throat gone over. There’s nothing radically +wrong with stomach or kidneys; heart shows nervous affection, nothing +more. He ought to be fit physically and he isn’t. Miss Jacobs reports a +maximum of an hour’s sleep in twenty-four. Doctor Dempsy writes it’s a +case for a nurse, not a doctor, and the most tactful, intuitive nurse we +have in the sanitarium. Please take it, Leerie.”</p> + +<p>The girl stiffened under the two hands placed on her shoulders, while +something indescribably baffling and impenetrable took possession of her +whole being. Her voice became almost curt. “Sorry, can’t. Bargain, you +know. Wouldn’t have come back<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> at all if you hadn’t promised I should not +be asked to take those cases.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll not ask you to take another, but you know how I feel about any +patient Doctor Dempsy sends to us. Anything I can do means paying back a +little on the great debt I owe him, the debt of a wonderful training. +That’s why I ask—this once.” A look almost fanatical came into the face +of the superintendent.</p> + +<p>The girl smiled wistfully up at her. “Wish I could! Honest I do, Miss Max! +I’d fight for the life of any patient under the old San roof—man, woman, +or child; but I’ll not baby-tend unhealthy-minded young men. You know as +well as I how it’s always been: they lose their heads and I my +temper—results, the same. I end by telling them just what I think; they +pay their bills and leave the same day. The San loses a perfectly good +annual patient, and the business office feels sore at me. No, I’m no good +at frequent pulses and cerebral massage; leave that to Coppy.”</p> + +<p>There was no stinging sarcasm in the girl’s voice. She reached out an +impulsive hand and slipped it into one of the older woman’s,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> leaving it +there long enough to give it a quick, firm grip. “Remember, it’s only +three years—and it takes so little to set tongues wagging again. So let’s +stick fast to the bargain, dear; only nervous old ladies or the bad +surgical cases.”</p> + +<p>“Very well. Only—if you could change your mind, let me know. In the mean +time I’ll put Miss Saunders on,” and the superintendent turned away, +troubled and unsatisfied.</p> + +<p>An hour later Sheila O’Leary came upon Miss Saunders with her new patient, +and the patient was the man of the omnibus—the man with the haunting, +deep-set eyes. Unnoticed, she watched them sitting on a bench by the pond, +the nurse droning aloud from a book, the man sagging listlessly, plainly +hearing nothing and seeing nothing. The picture set Sheila O’Leary +shuddering. If it was a case of ’phobia, God help the poor man with +Saunders coupled to his nerves! Cumbersome, big-hearted, and hopelessly +dull, Saunders was incapable of nursing with tactful insight a +nerve-racked man. In the whole wide realm of disease there seemed nothing +more tragic to Sheila than a victim<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> of ’phobia. It turned normal men and +women into pitiful children, afraid of the dark, groping out for the hand +to reassure them, to put heart and courage back in them again—the hand +that nine cases out of ten never reaches them in time.</p> + +<p>With an impulsive toss of her head, Sheila O’Leary swung about in her +tracks. She would break her own bargain for this once. She would go to +Miss Max and ask to be put on the case. Here was a soul sick unto death +with a fear of something, and Saunders was nursing it! What did it matter +if it was a man or a dog, as long as she could get into the dark after him +and show him the way out! Her resolve held to the point of branching +paths, and there she stopped to consider again.</p> + +<p>Peter’s eyes were on the swans; there was nothing to the general droop of +the shoulders, the thrust-forward bend of the neck, the hollowing of the +smooth-shaven cheeks, and the graying of the hair above the temples to +write him other than an average overworked or habitually harassed business +man here for rest and treatment. If Sheila was mistaken—if there was no +abnormal mental condition<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> back of it all, no legitimate reason for not +holding fast to the compact she had made three years before with herself +to leave men—young, old, or middle-aged—out of her profession, what a +fool she would feel! She balanced the paths and her judgment for a second, +then decided in favor of the bargain. So Peter was left to the +ministrations of Saunders.</p> + +<p>That night the unexpected happened, unexpected as far as the sanitarium, +the superintendent of nurses, and Sheila O’Leary were concerned. How +unexpected it was to Peter depends largely on whether it was the result of +a decision on his part to stop coaxing existence—or a desire to escape +permanently from Saunders—or merely an accident. However, Sheila O’Leary +was called in the middle of the night, when she was sleeping so soundly +that it took the combined efforts of the superintendent and the head night +nurse to shake her awake. As she hurried into her uniform they gave her +the bare details. Somehow the doors of the sun-parlor had not been +fastened as usual, and a patient had stayed up there after lights were +out. He had tried to find his way to the lift, had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> slipped the fastenings +of the door in his effort to locate the bell, and had fallen four stories, +to the top of the lift itself. The whole accident was unbelievable, +unprecedented. They might find some plausible explanation in the +morning—but in the mean time the patient was in the operating-room and +Sheila O’Leary was to report at once for night duty.</p> + +<p>As the girl pinned on her cap the superintendent whispered the last +instructions: “You’ll find him in Number Three, Surgical. It’s one of your +fighting cases, Leerie, and it’s Doctor Dempsy’s patient. Remember, your +best work this time, girl, for all our sakes!”</p> + +<p>And it was a fighting case. Innumerable nights followed, all alike. The +temperature rose and fell a little, only to rise again; the pulse +strengthened and weakened by turns; delirium continued unbroken. As night +after night wore on and no fresh sign of internal injury developed, the +girl found herself forgetting the immediate condition of the patient and +going back to the thing that had brought him here. If she was right and he +was possessed by a fixed idea, the dread of some concrete<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> thing or +experience, his delirium showed no evidence. It seemed more the delirium +of exhaustion than fever, and there was no raving. Consciousness, however, +might reveal what delirium hid, so, as the nights slipped monotonously by, +the girl found herself waiting with a growing eagerness for the man to +come back to himself.</p> + +<p>The waiting seemed interminable, but a time came at last when Sheila +slipped through the door of No. 3 and found a pair of deep-set, haunting +eyes turned full upon her.</p> + +<p>“It’s—it’s Leerie.” The words came with some difficulty, but there was an +untold relief in Peter’s voice.</p> + +<p>For a moment the girl was taken aback, but only for a moment. She laughed +him a friendly little laugh while she put her hand down to the hand that +was still too weak to reach out in greeting. “Yes. Oh yes, it’s Leerie. +Been getting pretty well acquainted with you these weeks, but rather a +surprise to find it so—so mutual.”</p> + +<p>“I got acquainted with you—beforehand,” announced Peter.</p> + +<p>“I see—omnibus, Hennessy, and the swans.” She laughed again softly. +“You’ve<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> been away a long time; hope you’re glad to get back.”</p> + +<p>Peter reflected. “I’m afraid I’m not. But I’ll not say it if it sounds too +much like a quitter.”</p> + +<p>“No, say it and get it out of your system. Getting well always seems a +terrible undertaking; and the stronger you’ve been the harder it seems.” +Sheila turned to her chart and preparations for the night.</p> + +<p>Lights out, she sat down by the open window to wait for Peter to sleep. An +hour passed, two hours, and sleep did not come. She fed him hot milk and +he still lay open-eyed, almost rigid, staring straight at the ceiling. At +midnight she stole out for her own supper in the diet-kitchen and found +him still awake when she returned, the haunting eyes looking more child’s +than man’s in the dimness of the night lamp. Had she been free to follow +her most vagrant impulse, she would have climbed on the head of the bed, +taken the bandaged head on her lap, and plunged into the most enthralling +tale of boy adventure her imagination could compass. But she hounded off +the impulse, after the fashion of treating all vagrants, and went<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> back to +the window to wait and wonder. Peter was still awake when the gray of the +morning crept down the corridors of the Surgical.</p> + +<p>Sheila questioned Tyler, the day nurse, as she came off duty the next +evening, “Number Three sleep any to boast of?”</p> + +<p>“Why, no! Didn’t he sleep well last night?”</p> + +<p>She gave a non-committal shrug and passed into the room. He was watching +for her coming, and a ghost of a smile flickered at the corners of his +mouth. She couldn’t remember having seen even so much of a smile before.</p> + +<p>“It’s—it’s Leerie.” He said it just as he had the night before. But there +was a strange, wistful appeal in the voice which set Sheila wondering +afresh.</p> + +<p>“Gorgeous night, full of stars, and air like wine. Smell the verbena and +thyme from the San gardens?” Sheila threw back her head and sniffed the +air like a wild thing. “Took me a month to trail that smell—be sure of +it. You only get it at night after a light rain. Take some long breaths of +it and you’ll be asleep before lights are out.”</p> + +<p>But he was not. He lay rigid as the night<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> before, his eyes staring +straight before him. Sheila remembered a description she had read once of +a mountain guide who had been caught on the edge of a landslide and hung +for hours over the abyss, clutching a half-felled tree and trying to keep +awake until help came. The man she was nursing might almost be living +through such an agony of mind and body, afraid to yield up his +consciousness lest he should go plunging off into some horrible abyss. +What did he fear? Was it sleep? Was somnophobia what lay behind the +wrecking of this fine, clean manhood? The thing seemed incredible, and +yet—and yet—</p> + +<p>Before dawn crept again into the Surgical, the mind of Sheila O’Leary was +made up. Peter was suddenly aware that the nurse was close at his bedside, +chafing the clenched fingers free. It was that mysterious hour that hangs +between the going night and coming day, the most non-resisting time for +body and mind, when the human will gives up the struggle if it gives it up +at all. And Sheila O’Leary, being well aware of this, rubbed the tense +nerves into a comfortable state of relaxation and talked.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>First she talked of the city, and found he was not city-born. Then she +talked of the country—of South, East, and West—and located his +birthplace in a small New England village. She talked of the outdoor +freedom of a country boy, of the wholesome work and fun on a farm with a +large family and good old-fashioned parents, and she found that he had +been an only child, motherless, with a family consisting of a +misanthropic, grief-stricken father and a hired girl. His voice sounded +toneless and more tired than ever as he spoke of his childhood.</p> + +<p>“Lonely?” queried Sheila.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps.”</p> + +<p>“Neglected and—frightened?”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>The girl leaned over the bed and looked straight into the eyes that seemed +to be daring her to find the way into his darkness and at the same time +barring fast the door against her coming. She smiled gently. “Tell me—can +you remember when you first began to fear sleep?”</p> + +<p>There was no denial, no protest. Peter sighed as a little worn-out boy +might have sighed with the irksome concealment of some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> forbidden act. “I +don’t know,” he said at last. “I can’t think back to a time when I wasn’t +afraid—afraid of the dropping out, into the dark. God!” He turned his +head away, and for the first time in two weary, wakeful nights Sheila saw +him close his eyes.</p> + +<p>Off duty, instead of going to breakfast and bed, Sheila O’Leary went to +the office of the superintendent of nurses. In her usual fashion she came +straight to her point. “Put Saunders back on Number Three and give me a +couple of days off. Please, Miss Max.”</p> + +<p>Her abruptness shook the almost unshakable calm of Miss Maxwell. She gazed +at the girl in frank amazement. “May I ask why?” There was a kindly irony +in the question.</p> + +<p>“Sounds queer, I know, but I’ve simply got to go. Lots depends on it, and +no time now to explain. Want to catch that eight-thirty-five; Flanders is +holding the bus. Tell you when I get back—please, Miss Max?” And taking +consent for granted, Sheila started for the door.</p> + +<p>There was an odd look on the face of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> superintendent as she watched +her go—a look of amused, loving pride. She might hide it from their +little world, but she could not deny it to herself, that of all the girls +she had helped to train, none had come so close to her heart as this girl +with her wonderful insight, her honesty, her plain speaking, and her heart +of gold. A hundred times she had defied the rules of the sanitarium, had +swept the superintendent’s dignity to the four winds. And she would +continue to do so, and they would continue to overlook it. Such petty +offenses are forgiven the Leeries the world over. And now, watching the +gray, alive figure climbing into the omnibus, Miss Maxwell had no mind to +resent her breach of discipline. She knew the girl had asked nothing for +herself; she had gone to do something for somebody who needed it, and she +would report for duty again when that was accomplished.</p> + +<p>And two days later, accordingly, she came, a luminous, ecstatic figure +that flew into the office with arms outstretched to swing the +superintendent almost off her feet in joyful triumph. “It <i>was</i> just what +I thought! Found the girl—only she is an old woman now—got the whole +miserable story from her,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> and—and—I think—I think—Good heart alive! I +think I can pull him out of the beastly old hole!”</p> + +<p>“Meaning—? Remember, my dear, I haven’t the grain of an idea why you +went, or where you went, or what the miserable story is about. Please +shine your lantern this way and light up my intelligence.” Miss Maxwell +was beaming.</p> + +<p>Sheila O’Leary laughed. “I began by jumping at conclusions—same as I +always do—jumped at ’phobia in Number Three. Almost came and asked to be +put on the case after you told me. But he isn’t Number Three any +more—he’s a little boy named Peter—a little boy, almost a baby, +frightened night after night for years and years into lying still in the +dark under the eaves in a little attic room, deliberately frightened by a +hired girl who wanted to be free to go off gadding with her young man. I +got the place and her name from Peter—coaxed it out of him—and I made +her tell me the story. The father paid her extra wages to stay at night so +the little boy wouldn’t be lonely and miss his mother too much, and she +didn’t want him to find out she had gone. So she’d put Peter to bed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> and +tell him that if he stirred or cried out the walls would close in on +him—or the floor would swallow him up—or the ghosts would come out of +the corners and eat him up or carry him off. Can’t you see him there, a +little quivering heap of a boy, awake in the dark, afraid to move? Can’t +you feel how he would lie and listen to all the sounds about him—the +squealing mice, the creaking rafters, the wind moaning in the eaves—too +terrified to go to sleep? And when he did sleep—worn out—can’t you +imagine what his dreams would be like? Oh, women like that—women who +could frighten little sensitive children—ought to be burned as they +burned the witches!” The girl’s eyes blazed and she shook a pair of +clenched fists into the air. “And can you see the rest of it? How the fear +grew and grew even as the memory of the tales faded, grew into a nameless, +unexplainable fear of sleep? And because he was a boy he hid it; and +because he was a man he fought it; but the thing nailed him at last. He +fought sleep until he lost the habit of sleep. He couldn’t get along +without it, and here he is!”</p> + +<p>“Well, what are you going to do?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> The superintendent eyed her narrowly; +her cheeks were as flushed as the girl’s.</p> + +<p>A little enigmatical smile curved up the corners of the usually demure +mouth. “Going to play Leerie—going to play it harder than I ever did in +my life before.”</p> + +<p>And that night as Peter turned his head wearily toward the door to greet +the kindly, cumbersome Saunders, he found, to his surprise, the owner of +the shining eyes come back. He felt so ridiculously glad about it that he +couldn’t even trust himself to tell her so. Instead he repeated foolishly +the same old thing, “Why, it’s—it’s Leerie!”</p> + +<p>When everything was ready for the night, Sheila turned the night-light out +and lowered the curtain until it was quite dark. Then she drew her chair +close to the bed and slipped her hand into the lean, clenched one on the +coverlid. “Don’t think of me as a girl—a nurse—a person—at all, +to-night,” she said, softly. “I’m just a piece of Stevenson’s poem come to +life—a lamplighter for a little boy going to sleep all alone in a +farm-house attic. It’s very dark. You can hear the mice squeal and the +rafters creak, if you listen, and the window’s so small the stars<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> can’t +creep in. In the daytime the attic doesn’t seem far away or very strange, +but at night it’s miles—miles away from the rest of the house, and it’s +full of things that may happen. That’s why I’m here with my lamp.”</p> + +<p>Sheila stopped a moment. She could hear the man’s breath coming quick, +with a catch in it—a child breathes that way when it is fighting down a +cry or a sob. Then she went on: “Of course it’s a magical lamp I carry, +and with the first sputter and spark it lights up and turns the attic +inside out—and there we are, the little boy and I, hand in hand, running +straight for the brook back of the house. The lamp burns as bright as the +sun now, so it seems like day—a spring day. It isn’t the mice squealing +at all that you hear, but the birds singing and the brook running. There +are cowslips down by the brook, and ‘Jacks.’ Here by the big stone is a +chance to build a bully good dam and sailboats made out of the shingles +blown off from the barn roof. Want to stop and build it now?”</p> + +<p>“All right.” There was almost a suppressed laugh in the voice; it +certainly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> sounded glad. And the hand on the coverlid was as relaxed as +that of a child being led somewhere it wants to go.</p> + +<p>Sheila smiled happily in the dark: “You must get stones, then—lots and +lots of them—and we’ll pile them together. There’s one stone—and two +stones—and three stones. Another stone here—another here—another +here—a big one there where the current runs swiftest, and little stones +for the chinks.”</p> + +<p>According to Sheila O’Leary’s best reckoning the dam was only half built +when the little boy fell fast asleep over his work. And when the gray of +the morning stole down the corridors of the Surgical, No. 3 was sleeping, +with one arm thrown over his head as little boys sleep, and the other +holding fast to the nurse on night duty.</p> + +<p>But it takes a long while to break down an old habit and build up a new +one, as it takes a long while to build a dam. No less than tons of stones +must have gone to the building of Peter’s before the time came when he +could drop asleep alone and unguided. In all that time neither he nor the +girl ever spoke of what lay between the putting out of the night lamp<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> and +the waking fresh and rested to a welcomed day.</p> + +<p>With sleep came speedy recovery, and Peter was the most popular +convalescent in the Surgical. His laugh had suddenly grown contagious, his +humor irresistible, his outlook on life so optimistically bubbling that +less cheery patients turned their wheel-chairs to No. 3 for revitalizing. +The chief came up with Doctor Dempsy from town, and both went away wearing +the look of men who have seen miracles. Life in its fullness had come to +Peter, the life he had dreamed of, as a lost crosser of the desert dreams +of water. Efficient work was to be his again, and companionship, and—yes, +for the first time he hoped for the third and best of life’s +ingredients—he hoped for love.</p> + +<p>And then, just as everything looked best and brightest, he was told that +he no longer needed a night nurse. Sheila O’Leary was put on the case of +an old lady with chronic dyspepsia. She told him herself, as she went off +duty in the Surgical for the last time.</p> + +<p>“You’ve had the best sleep of all.” She smiled at his efforts to pull +himself awake. “I’ll drop in when I’m passing, to see how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> you’re getting +on, but otherwise this is good-by and good luck.” She held out her hand.</p> + +<p>“Why—but—Hang it all! I can’t get along without a night nurse. And if I +don’t need one, why can’t you take Miss Tyler’s place in the day?”</p> + +<p>“Orders.” Sheila announced it as an unshakable fact.</p> + +<p>“I’ll see Miss Maxwell.”</p> + +<p>“No use. She wouldn’t listen.”</p> + +<p>“Guess if I’m paying for it I can have—”</p> + +<p>Sheila O’Leary’s chin squared and her body stiffened. “There are some +things no one can pay for, Mr. Brooks.”</p> + +<p>Peter colored crimson. He reached quickly for the hand Sheila had pulled +away. “What an ungrateful cur you must think I am! And I’ve never said a +word—never thanked you.”</p> + +<p>“There was nothing to thank for. I was only undoing what another woman had +done long ago. That’s one of the glad things about nursing; we so often +have a chance at just that sort of thing—the chance to make up for some +of the blind mistakes in life. Good-by. I’m late now.”</p> + +<p>“But—but—” Peter held frantically to the hand. “’Pon my soul, I can’t +let you go<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> until—until—” He broke off, crimsoning again. “Promise a +time when you will come back—just a minute I can count on and look +forward to. Please!”</p> + +<p>“All right—I’ll be back at four—just for a minute.”</p> + +<p>It happened, however, that Miss Jacobs—pink-cheeked, auburn-haired, +green-eyed little Miss Jacobs, the first nurse on Peter’s case, blew into +No. 3 a few minutes before four. She had developed the habit of blowing in +at least once in the day and telling Peter how perfectly splendid it was +to see him getting along so well. But as he did not happen to look quite +so well this time, she condoled and wormed the reason out of Peter.</p> + +<p>“Leerie off duty! Don’t you think it’s rather remarkable they let her stay +so long? Of course the management, as a rule, doesn’t let her have cases +of—of this kind. A girl who’s been sent away on account +of—of—questionable conduct isn’t exactly safe to trust. Don’t you think +so? And the San can’t afford to risk its reputation.” For an instant the +green eyes shimmered and glistened balefully, while she tossed her auburn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> +curls coyly at Peter. “It’s really too bad, for she’s a wonderful surgical +nurse. All the best surgeons want her on their cases. That’s why they put +her on with you; that’s really why they let her come back at all.”</p> + +<p>A look in Peter’s eyes stopped her and made her look back over her +shoulder. Sheila O’Leary stood in the open doorway. For an instant the +perpetual assurance of Miss Jacobs was shaken, but only for an instant. +She smiled tolerantly. “Hello, Leerie! I’ve been telling Mr. Brooks what a +wonderful surgical nurse you are.”</p> + +<p>The gray eyes of the girl in the doorway looked steadily into the green +eyes of the girl by the bed. “Thank you, Coppy, I heard you.” And she +stepped aside to let the other pass out.</p> + +<p>“Well?” she asked when the two were alone.</p> + +<p>“Well!” answered Peter, emphatically. “Everything is very, very well. Do +you know,” and he smiled up at her like a happy small boy—“do you know +that all the while you were building that dam I was building something +else?”</p> + +<p>“Were you?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>“I was building my life over again—building it fresh, with the fear gone +and everything sound and strong and fine. And into the chinks where all +the miserable empty places had been—the places where loneliness and +heartache eternally leaked through—I was fitting love, the love I never +dared dream of.”</p> + +<p>“Yes?”</p> + +<p>The girl’s lips looked strangely hard—almost bitter, Peter thought; and +this time he reached out both arms to her.</p> + +<p>“Hang it all! It’s tough on a man who’s never dared dream of love to have +it take him, bandaged and tied to his bed. Leerie—Leerie! You wouldn’t +have the heart to blow out the lamp now, would you?”</p> + +<p>The lips softened, she gave a sad little shake of her head. “No, but +you’ve got to keep it burning yourself. You’re a man; you can do it. +Sorry—can’t help it. And please don’t say anything more. Don’t spoil it +all, and make me say things I wish I hadn’t and send you off to pay your +bill and leave the San to-night.” She smiled wistfully. “Dear, grown-up +boy! Don’t you know that it’s the customary thing for a man to think he’s +fallen in love with his nurse when he’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> convalescing? Just get well and +forget it—as all the others do.” She turned toward the door.</p> + +<p>“I’m not going to pay my bill to-night, and I’m not going to forget it. I +guess all those chinks haven’t been filled up yet. I’m going to stay until +they are. Good plan, don’t you think?” And Peter Brooks smiled like a man +who had never been given up—nor ever intended giving up, now that life +had given him back the things for which he had a right to fight.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="Chapter_II" id="Chapter_II"></a>Chapter II</h2> +<h3>OLD KING COLE</h3> + +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">Hennessy</span> was feeding the swans. Sheila O’Leary leaned over the sill of the +diminutive rustic rest-house and watched him with a tired contentment. She +had just come off a neurasthenic case—a week of twenty-four-hour +duty—and she wanted to stretch her cramped sensibilities in the quiet +peace of the little house and invite her soul with a glimpse of Hennessy +and the swans.</p> + +<p>All about her the grounds of the sanitarium were astir with its customary +crowd of early-summer-afternoon patients. How those first warm days called +the sick folks out-of-doors and held them there until the last beam of +sunshine had disappeared behind the foremost hill! The tennis-courts were +full; the golf-links were dotted about with spots of color like a cubist +picture; pairs of probationers, arm in arm, were strolling about, enjoying +a comparative leisure; old Madam<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> Courot was at her customary place under +the juniper, watching the sun go down. Three years! Nothing seemed changed +in all that time but the patients—and not all of these, as Madame Courot +silently testified. The pines shook themselves above the rest-house in the +same lazy, vagabond fashion, the sun purpled the far hills and spun the +same yellow haze over the links, the wind brought its habitual afternoon +accompaniment of cow-bells from the sanitarium farm, and Hennessy threw +the last crumb of bread to Brian Boru, the gray swan, as he had done for +the fifteen years Sheila could remember.</p> + +<p>She folded her arms across the sill and rested her chin on them. How good +it was to be back at the old San, to settle down to its kindly, +comfortable ways and the peace of its setting after the feverish +restlessness of city hospitals! She remembered what Kipling had said, that +the hill people who came down to the plains were always hungering to get +back to the hills again. That was the way she had felt about it—always a +hunger to come back. For months and months she had thought that she might +forever have to stay in those hospitals, have to make up her mind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> to the +eternal plains—and then had come her reprieve—she had been called back +to the San and the work she loved best.</p> + +<p>Had the place been any other than the sanitarium, and the person any other +than Sheila O’Leary, this would never have happened. For she had left +under a cloud, and in similar cases a cloud, once gathered, grows until it +envelops, suffocates, and finally annihilates the person. As a graduate +nurse she would have ceased to exist. But in spite of the most blighting +circumstances, those who counted most believed in her and trusted her. +They had only waited for time to forget and tongues to stop wagging, and +then they had called her back. Perhaps the strangest thing about it was +that Sheila did not look like a person who could have had even the +smallest, fleeciest of clouds brushing her most distant horizon. In fact, +so vital, warm, and glowing was her personality, so radiant her nature, +that she seemed instead a permanent dispeller of clouds.</p> + +<p>From across the pond Hennessy watched her with adoring eyes as he gave his +habitual, final bang to the bread-platter and the hitch to his corduroys +preparatory to leaving.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> To his way of thinking, there was no nurse +enrolled on the books of the old San who could compare with her. In the +beginning he had prophesied great things of her to Flanders, the +bus-driver. “Ye mind what I’m tellin’ ye,” he had said. “Afore she’s +finished her trainin’ she’ll have more lads a-dandtherin’ round her than +if she’d been the King of Ireland’s only daughter. Ye can take my word for +it, when she leaves here, ’twill be a grand home of her own she’ll be +goin’ to an’ no dirty hospital.”</p> + +<p>That had been three years ago, and Hennessy sighed now over the utter +futility of his words. “Sure, who could have been seein’ that one o’ the +lads would have turned blackguard? Hennessy knows. Just give the lass time +for that hurt to heal, an’ she’ll be winnin’ a home of her own, after +all.” This he muttered to himself as he took the path leading toward the +rest-house.</p> + +<p>Sheila saw him coming, his lips shirred to the closeness of some emotional +strain. “Hello, Hennessy! What’s troubling?” she called down the path.</p> + +<p>“Faith, it’s Mr. Peter Brooks that’s troublin’. ’Tis a week, now, that +ye’ve been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> off that case—an’ he’s near cured. Another week now—”</p> + +<p>“In another week he’ll be going back to his work—and I’ll be very glad.”</p> + +<p>Hennessy eyed the girl narrowly. “Will ye, then? Why did ye cure him up so +fast for, Miss Leerie? Why didn’t ye give the poor man a chance?”</p> + +<p>No one but Hennessy would have had sufficient temerity for such a +question, but had any one dared to ask it, upon their heads would have +fallen the combined anger and bitterness of Sheila’s tongue. For having +had occasion once for bitterness, it was not over-hard to waken it when +men served as topics. But at Hennessy she smiled tolerantly. “Didn’t I +give him a chance to get well? That was all he needed or wanted. And, now +he’s well, he’ll go about his business.”</p> + +<p>“Faith,” and Hennessy closed a suggestive eye, “that depends on what he +takes to be his business. In my young days the choosin’ an’ courtin’ of a +wife was the big part of a man’s business. Now if he comes round askin’ my +opinion—”</p> + +<p>“Tell him, Hennessy”—and Sheila fixed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> him firmly with a glance—“that +the sanitarium does not encourage its cured patients to hang about +bothering its nurses. It is apt to make trouble for the nurses. +Understand?”</p> + +<p>Again Hennessy closed one eye; then he laughed. “When ye talk of devils +ye’re sure to smell brimstone. There comes Mr. Brooks now, an’ he has his +head back like a dog trailin’ the wind.”</p> + +<p>The girl turned and followed Hennessy’s jerking thumb with her eyes. +Across the pine grove, coming toward them, was a young man above medium +height, square-shouldered and erect. There was nothing startlingly +handsome nor remarkable about his appearance; he was just nice, strong, +clean-looking. He waved to the two by the rest-house.</p> + +<p>“And do ye mind his looks when he came!” Hennessy’s tone denoted wonder +and admiration.</p> + +<p>“A human wreck—haunted at that.” There was a good deal more than mere +professional interest in Sheila’s tone; there was pride and something +else. It was past Hennessy’s perceptive powers to define what, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> he +noticed it, nevertheless, and looked sharply up at the girl.</p> + +<p>“For the love o’ Mike, Miss Leerie! Why can’t ye stop ticketin’ each man +as a case an’ begin thinkin’ about them human-like? Ye might begin +practisin’ wi’ Mr. Brooks.”</p> + +<p>The line of Sheila’s lips became fixed; the chin that could look so +demure, the eyes that could look so soft and gentle, both backed up the +lips in an expression of inscrutable hardness.</p> + +<p>“In the name of your patron saint, Hennessy, what have you said to Miss +Leerie to turn her into that sphinx again?” The voice of Peter Brooks was +as nice as his appearance.</p> + +<p>Hennessy looked foolish. “I was tellin’ her, then,” he moistened his lips +to allow a safer emigration of words—“I was tellin’ her—that the gray +swan had the rheumatism in his left leg, an’ I was askin’ her, did she +think Doctor Willum would prescribe a thermo bath for him. I’d best be +askin’ him meself, maybe,” and with a sudden pull at his forelock Hennessy +backed away down the path.</p> + +<p>Peter Brooks watched him depart with an admiration equal to that with +which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> Hennessy had welcomed him. “That man has a wonderful insight into +human nature. Now I was just wishing I could have you all alone for +about—”</p> + +<p>Sheila interrupted him. “I hope you weren’t counting on too many minutes. +I can see Miss Maxwell coming down the San steps, and I have a substantial +feeling that she’s looking for me to put me on another case.”</p> + +<p>“Couldn’t we escape? Couldn’t we skip round by the farm to the garage and +get my car? You look fagged out. A couple of hours’ ride would do wonders +for you, and—Good Lord! The San can run that long without your services. +What do you say? Shall we beat it?”</p> + +<p>With a telltale, pent-up eagerness he noticed the girl’s indecision and +flung himself with all his persuasive powers to turn the balance in his +favor. “Do come. You can work better and harder for a little time off now +and then. All the other nurses take it. Why under the heavens can’t a man +ever persuade you to have a little pleasure?” Something in Sheila’s face +stopped him and prompted the one argument that could have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> persuaded her. +“If you’ll only come, Leerie, I’ll promise to keep dumb—absolutely dumb. +I’ll promise not to spoil the ride for you.”</p> + +<p>Sheila flung him a radiant smile; it almost unbalanced him and murdered +his resolve. “Then I’ll come. You’re the first man I ever knew who could +keep his word—that way. Hurry! we’ll have to run for it.” And taking the +lead, she ducked through the little door of the rest-house and ran, +straight as the crow flies, to the hiding shelter of the farm.</p> + +<p>But her premonition was correct. When she returned two hours later in the +cool of a summer’s twilight, with eyes that sparkled like iridescent pools +and lips that smiled generously her gratitude to the man who could keep +his word, she found the superintendent of nurses watching from the San +steps for their car.</p> + +<p>“All right, Miss Maxwell,” she nodded in response to the question that was +plainly stamped on the superintendent’s face. “We’ve had supper—don’t +even have to change my uniform.” Then to Peter, “Thank you.”</p> + +<p>The words were meager enough, but Peter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> Brooks had already received his +compensation in the girl’s glowing face. “It’s ‘off again, on again, gone +again,’ in your profession, too. Well, here’s looking forward to the next +escape.” His laugh rang with health and good spirits.</p> + +<p>Sheila stopped on her way up the steps, turned and looked back at him. The +wonder of his recovery often surprised even herself. It seemed incredible +that this pulsing, vitalized portion of humanity could have once been a +veritable husk, hounded by a haunting fear into a state of hopelessness +and loathing of existence. Life certainly tingled in Peter now, and every +time Sheila felt it, man or no man, she could not help rejoice with all +her heart at the thing she had helped to do.</p> + +<p>Peter’s smile met hers half-way in the dusk. “It may be another week +before I see you again. In case—I’d like to tell you that I’m staying on +indefinitely. The chief has pushed me out of my Sunday section and has +sent me a lot of special articles to do up here. He thinks I had better +not come back until I’m all fit.”</p> + +<p>“You’re perfectly fit now.” There was a brutal frankness in the girl’s +words.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>Peter had grown used to these moments. They no longer troubled or hurt +him. He had begun to understand. “Maybe I am; I feel so, but you can never +tell. Then there’s always the danger of one’s heart going back on one. +That’s why I’ve decided to stay on and coddle mine. Rather good plan?”</p> + +<p>Sheila O’Leary vouchsafed no answer. She disappeared through the entrance +of the sanitarium, leaving Peter Brooks still smiling. Neither his +expression nor position had changed a few seconds later when Miss Jacobs +touched him on the arm.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mr. Brooks! Were you the guilty party—running away with Leerie? For +the last two hours we’ve been combing the San grounds for her.” The green +eyes of the flirtatious nurse gleamed peculiarly catlike in the dusk. “Of +course I don’t suppose my opinion counts so very much with you,” there was +a honeyed, self-deprecatory quality in the girl’s tone, “but if I were +you, I wouldn’t go about so awfully much with Leerie. She’s a dear girl—I +don’t suppose it’s really her fault—but she had such a record. And you +know it’s my creed that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> girls of that kind can compromise poor men far +oftener than men compromise girls. Oh, I do hope you understand what I +mean!”</p> + +<p>Peter still wore a smile, but it was a different smile. It was as much +like the old one as a search-light is like sunshine. He focused it full on +Miss Jacobs’s face. “I’m a shark at understanding. And don’t worry about +me. I’m more of a shark in deep water with—with sirens.” He chuckled +inwardly at the look of blank incomprehension on the nurse’s face. “By the +way, just what did you want Miss Leary for? Not another accident?”</p> + +<p>The girl gave her head a disgusted toss. “Oh, they want her to help an old +man die. He came up here a week ago. I saw him then, and he looked ready +to burst. Doctor MacByrn said he weighed over three hundred and had a +blood pressure of two hundred and ten. They can’t bring it down, and his +heart is about done for. Leerie always gets those dying cases. Ugh!” The +girl shuddered. “Guess they wouldn’t put me on any of those sure-dead +cases; it’s bad enough when you happen on them.”</p> + +<p>Peter shot her a pitying glance and walked back to his car. He was just +climbing in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> when the girl’s voice chirped back to him. “Just the night +for a ride, isn’t it? I couldn’t think of letting you go all alone and be +lonesome. Isn’t it lucky I’m off duty till ten!”</p> + +<p>“Lucky for the patient!” Peter mumbled under his breath; then aloud: +“Sorry, but I’m unlucky. Only enough gasoline to get her back to the +garage. Good night.” He swung the car free of the curb, leaving little +red-headed, green-eyed Miss Jacobs in the process of gathering up her +skirts and mounting into thin air.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Sheila had followed the superintendent to her office. “It’s a +case of cerebral hemorrhages. The man is no fool; he knows his condition, +and he’s been getting increasingly hard to take care of every minute since +he found out. Maybe you’ve heard of him. He’s Brandle, the coal magnate. +Quite alone in the world; no children, and his wife died some few years +ago. He’s very peculiar, and no one seems to know what to say to him or do +for him. I’m a little afraid—” and the superintendent paused to consider +her words before committing herself. “I think perhaps there have been too +many<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> offers of prayers and scriptural readings for his taste.”</p> + +<p>“Probably he’d prefer the last <i>Town Topics</i> or the latest detective +story.” Sheila shook her head violently. “Why can’t a man be allowed to +die the way he chooses—instead of your way, or my way, or the Reverend +Mr. Grumble’s way?”</p> + +<p>“Miss Barry is on the case now, and I’m afraid he’s shocked her into—”</p> + +<p>“Perpetual devotion.” Sheila grinned sympathetically as she completed the +sentence. They had called her Prayer-Book Barry her probation year because +of her unswerving religious point of view, and her years of training had +only served to increase it. The picture of anything as sensitively pious +as Prayer-Book Barry helping a coal magnate to depart this temporal world +in his own chosen fashion was too much for Sheila’s sense of the +grotesque. She threw back her head and laughed. Peal after peal rang out +and over the transom of the superintendent’s office just as Miss Jacobs +passed.</p> + +<p>It took no great powers of penetration to identify the laugh; a look of +satisfaction crept into the green eyes. “Quite dramatic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> and brutally +unfeeling I call it,” she murmured. “But it will make an entertaining +story to tell Mr. Brooks. He thinks Leerie is such a little tinseled +saint.”</p> + +<p>Ten minutes later Sheila O’Leary followed Miss Maxwell into the large +tower room of the sanitarium to relieve Miss Barry from duty. As she took +her first look from the doorway she almost forgot herself and laughed +again. The room might have been a scene set for a farce or a comic opera.</p> + +<p>Propped up in bed, with multitudinous pillows about him, was a very +mammoth of a man in heliotrope-silk pajamas. His face was as round and +full and bucolic as a poster advertising some specific brew of beer. +Surmounting the face was a sparse fringe of white hair standing erect, +while an isolated lock mounted guard over a receding forehead. It was +evident that the natural expression of the face was good-natured, +indulgent, easygoing, but at the moment of Sheila’s entrance it was +contorted into something that might have served for a cartoon of a +choleric full moon. The eyes were rolling frantically in every direction +but that from which the presumable infliction came, for seated at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> +bedside, with a booklet of evening prayer open on her lap, was Miss Barry, +reading aloud in a sweet, gentle voice.</p> + +<p>Miss Barry did not stop until she had finished her paragraph. The +cessation of her voice brought the roving eyes to a standstill; then they +flew straight to Miss Maxwell in abject appeal. “Take it away, ma’am. +Don’t hurt it—but take it away!” The articulation was thick, but it did +not mask the wail in the voice, and a gigantic thumb jerked indicatively +toward the patient, asserting figure of Miss Barry.</p> + +<p>“All right, Mr. Brandle.” Miss Maxwell’s tone showed neither conciliation +nor pity; it was plainly matter-of-fact. “As it happens, I’ve brought you +a new nurse. Suppose you try Miss O’Leary for the next day or two.”</p> + +<p>The wail broke out afresh: “How can I tell if I can stand her? They all +look alike—all of ’em. You’re the fourth, ain’t you?” He turned to the +nurse at his bedside for corroboration.</p> + +<p>“Then I’m the fifth,” announced Sheila, “and there’s luck in odd numbers.”</p> + +<p>“Five’s my number.” The mammoth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> man looked a fraction less distracted as +he stated this important fact. “Born fifth day of the fifth month, struck +it rich when I was twenty-five, married in ’seventy-five, formed the +American Coal Trust December fifth, eighteen ninety-five. How’s that for a +number?”</p> + +<p>“And I’m twenty-five, and this is June fifth.” Sheila smiled.</p> + +<p>“Say, honest?” A glimmer of cheerfulness filtered through. The man +beckoned the superintendent of nurses closer and whispered in a perfectly +audible voice: “Can’t you take it away now? I’d like to ask the other some +questions before you leave her for keeps.”</p> + +<p>Miss Maxwell nodded a dismissal to the nurse who had been, and called +Sheila to the bedside. “Look her over well, Mr. Brandle. Miss O’Leary +isn’t a bit sensitive.”</p> + +<p>“O’Leary? That’s not a bad name. Had a shaft boss up at my first +anthracite-mine by that name—got on with him first-class. Say”—this +direct to Sheila—“can you pray?”</p> + +<p>“Not unless I have to.”</p> + +<p>“Not a bad answer. Now what—er—form of—literatoore do you prefer?”</p> + +<p>“Things with pep—punch—go!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>“Say, shake.” The mammoth man smiled as he held out a giant fist. Sheila +had the feeling she was shaking hands with some prehistoric animal. It was +almost repellent, and she had to summon all her sympathy and control to be +able to return the shake with any degree of cordiality.</p> + +<p>“All right, ma’am. You can leave us now to thrash it out man to man. You’d +better get back to managing your little white angels,” and he swept a +dismissing hand toward Miss Maxwell and the door.</p> + +<p>Oddly enough, there was nothing rude nor affronting in the man’s words. +There was too much of underlying good nature to permit it. With the +closing of the door behind the superintendent he turned to Sheila. “Now, +boss, we might as well understand each other—it’ll save strikes or hurt +feelings. Eh?”</p> + +<p>Sheila nodded.</p> + +<p>“All right. I’m dying, and I know it. May burst like a paper bag or go up +like a penny balloon any minute. Now praying won’t keep me from bursting a +second sooner, or send me up a foot higher, so cut it out.”</p> + +<p>Again Sheila nodded.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>“That isn’t all. Had two nurses who agreed, kept their word, but they +hadn’t the nerve to keep the parson from praying, and when he was off duty +they just sat—twiddled their thumbs and waited for me to quit. Couldn’t +stand that—got on my nerves something fearful.”</p> + +<p>“Wanted to murder them, didn’t you?” Sheila laughed. “Well, Mr. Brandle, +suppose we begin with supper and the baseball news. After that we’ll hunt +up a thriller—biggest thriller they’ve got in the book-store.”</p> + +<p>“You’re boss,” was the answer, but a look of relief—almost of +contentment—spread over the rubicund face.</p> + +<p>As Sheila was leaving for the supper-tray she paused. “How would you like +company for supper?”</p> + +<p>“Company? Good Lord, not the parson!”</p> + +<p>“No, me. If you are willing to sign for two, I could bring my supper up +with yours.”</p> + +<p>“And not eat alone! By Jehoshaphat! Give me that slip quick.”</p> + +<p>They had not only a good supper, they had a noisy one. The coal magnate +roared over Sheila’s descriptions of some of the bath treatments and their +victims. In the midst<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> of one particularly noisy explosion he suddenly +stopped and looked accusingly at her. “Why don’t you stop me? Don’t you +know doctor’s orders? Had ’em dinged into my head until I could say ’em +backwards: no exertion, no excitement, avoid all undue movement, keep +quiet. Darn it all! As if I won’t have to keep quiet long enough! +Well—why don’t you repeat those fool orders and keep me quiet?”</p> + +<p>Sheila looked at him with a pair of steady gray eyes. “Do you know, Mr. +Brandle, it isn’t a half-bad way to go out of this world—to go laughing.”</p> + +<p>The mammoth man beamed. He looked for all the world like the full moon +suddenly grown beatific. “And I’d just about made up my mind that I’d +never find a blamed soul who would feel that way about it. Shake again, +boss.”</p> + +<p>After the baseball news and a fair start in the thriller, he indulged +further in past grievances. “Hadn’t any more’n settled it for sure I was +done for than the parson came and the nurse took to looking mournful. Lord +Almighty! ain’t it bad enough to be carted off in a hearse once without +folks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> putting you in beforehand? That’s not my notion of dying. I lived +pleasant and cheerful, and by the Lord Harry, I don’t see why I can’t die +that way! And look-a-here, boss, I don’t want any of that repenting stuff. +I don’t need no puling parson to tell me I’m a sinner. Any idiot couldn’t +look at me without guessing that much. Say!” He leaned forward with sudden +earnestness. “Take a good look at me yourself. See any halo or angel +trappings about me?”</p> + +<p>Sheila laughed. “I’m afraid not. What you really ought to have—what I +miss about you—is the pipe, and the bowl, and the fiddlers three.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean by that?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you remember? It’s an old nursery rhyme; probably you heard it +hundreds of times when you were a little boy:</p> + +<p class="poem">“Old King Cole was a merry old soul<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And a merry old soul was he.</span><br /> +He called for his pipe and he called for his bowl,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And he called for his fiddlers three.”</span></p> + +<p>The coal magnate threw back his head on the pillows and laughed long and +loud. He laughed until he grew purple and gasped for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> breath, and he +laughed while he choked, and Sheila flew about for stimulants. For a few +breathless moments Sheila thought she had whipped up the hearse—to use +the mammoth man’s own metaphor—but after a panting half-hour the heart +subsided and the breath came easier.</p> + +<p>“You nearly did for me that time, boss. But it fits; Jehoshaphat, it fits +me like a B. V. D.! The only difference you might put down to simplified +spelling. Eh?” And he cautiously chuckled at his joke.</p> + +<p>While Sheila was making ready for the night he chuckled and lapsed into +florid, heliotrope studies by turns. “It’s straight, what I told you about +being a sinner,” he gave verbal expression to his thoughts at last. +“That’s why I don’t leave a cent to charity—not a cent. Ain’t going to +have any peaked-faced, oily-tongued jackasses saying over my coffin that I +tried to buy my entrance ticket into the Lord Almighty’s kingdom. No, +sirree! I know I’ve lived high, eaten well, and drunk some. I’ve made the +best of every good bargain that came within eyeshot. I treated my own +handsome—and I let the rest of the world go<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> hang. Went to church Easter +Sunday every year and put a bill in the plate; you can figure for yourself +about how much I’ve given to charity. Never had any time to think of it, +anyway—probably wouldn’t have given if I had. Always thought Mother’d +live longer’n me and she’d take care of that end of it. But she didn’t.”</p> + +<p>For a moment Sheila thought the man was going to cry; his lower lip +quivered like a baby’s, and his eyes grew red and watery. There was no +denying it, the man was a caricature; even his grief was ludicrous. He +wiped his eyes with the back of his heliotrope sleeve and finished what he +had to say. “Don’t it beat all how the pious vultures croak over you the +minute you’re done for—reminding you you can’t take your money away with +you? Didn’t the parson—first time he came—sit in that chair and open up +and begin about the rich man’s squeezing through a needle’s eye and a lot +about putting away temporal stuff? I don’t aim to do any squeezing into +heaven, I can tell you. And I fixed him all right. Ha, ha! I told him as +long as the money wouldn’t do me and Mother any more good I’d settle it +so’s it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> couldn’t benefit any one else. And that’s exactly what I’ve done. +Left it all for a monument for us, fancy marble, carved statues, and the +whole outfit. It’ll beat that toadstool-looking tomb of that prince +somewhere in Asia all hollow. Ha, ha!”</p> + +<p>He leaned back to enjoy to the full this humorous legacy to himself, but +the expression of Sheila’s face checked it. “Say, boss, you don’t like +what I’ve done, do you? Run it out and dump it; I can stand for straight +talk from you.”</p> + +<p>Sheila felt repelled even more than she had at first. To have a man at the +point of death throw his money into a heap of marble just to keep it from +doing good to any one seemed horrible. And yet the man spoke so +consistently for himself. He had lived in the flesh and for the flesh all +his days; it was not strange that there was no spirit to interpret now for +him or to give him the courage to be generous in the face of what the +world would think.</p> + +<p>“It’s yours to spend as you like—only—I hate monuments. Rather have the +plain green grass over me. And don’t you think it’s queer yourself that a +man who had the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> grit to make himself and a pile of money hasn’t the grit +to leave it invested after he goes, instead of burying it? Supposing you +can’t live and use it yourself! That’s no reason for not letting your +money live after you. I’d want to keep my money alive.”</p> + +<p>“Alive? Say, what do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Just what I say—alive. Charity isn’t the only way to dispose of it. +Leave it to science to discover something new with; give it to the +laboratories to study up typhoid or cancer. Ever think how little we know +about them?”</p> + +<p>“Why should I? I don’t owe anything to science.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, you do. What developed the need of coal—what gave you the +facilities for removing it from your mines? Don’t tell me you or anybody +else doesn’t owe something to science.”</p> + +<p>“Bosh!” And the argument ended there.</p> + +<p>The old man had a good night. He dozed as peacefully as if he had not +required propping up and occasional hypodermics to keep his lungs and +heart going properly, and when the house doctor made his early rounds this +sad and shocking spectacle met his eye: the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> dying coal magnate, arrayed +in a fresh and more vivid suit of heliotrope pajamas, smoking a brierwood +and keeping a violent emotional pace with the hero in the thrillingest +part of the thriller. Even Sheila’s cheeks were tinged with excitement.</p> + +<p>“Miss O’Leary!” All the outraged sensibilities of an orthodox, +conscientious young house physician were plainly manifested in those two +words.</p> + +<p>Out shot the brierwood like a projectile, and a giant finger wagged at the +intruder. “Look-a-here, young man, the boss and I are running +this—er—quitting game to suit ourselves, and we don’t need no +suggestions from the walking delegate, or the board of directors, or the +gang. See? Now if you can’t say something pleasant and cheerful, get out!”</p> + +<p>“Good morning!” It was the best compromise the house physician could make. +But ten minutes after his speedy exit Doctor Greer, the specialist, and +Miss Maxwell were on the threshold, both looking unmistakably troubled.</p> + +<p>The coal magnate winked at Sheila. “Here comes the peace delegates—or +maybe it’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> from the labor union. Well, sir?” This was shot straight at +the doctor.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Brandle, you’re mad. I refuse to take any responsibility.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t have to. That’s what’s been the matter—too much responsibility. It +got on my nerves. Now we want to be as—as noisy and as happy as we can, +the boss and me. And if we can’t do it in this little old medicated +brick-pile of yours, why, we’ll move. See? Or I’ll buy it with a few tons +of my coal and give it to the boss to run.”</p> + +<p>“When it’s yours.” The specialist was finding it hard to keep his temper. +The man had worn him out in the week he had been at the sanitarium. It had +been harder to manage him than a spoiled child or a lunatic. He had had to +humor him, cajole him, entreat him, in a way that galled his professional +dignity, and now to have the man deliberately and publicly kill himself in +this fashion was almost beyond endurance. He tried hard to make his voice +sound agreeable as well as determined when he launched his ultimatum. “But +in the mean time Miss O’Leary will have to be removed from the case.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>“No, you don’t!” With a sweep of the giant hand the bedclothes were jerked +from their roots, and a pair of heliotrope legs projected floorward. It +took the strength of all the three present to hold him back and replace +the covering. The magnate sputtered and fumed. “First nurse you put on +here after the boss goes—I’ll die on her hands in ten minutes just to get +even with you. That’s what I’ll do. And what’s more—I’ll come back to +haunt the both of you. Take away my boss—just after we get things going +pleasantly. Spoil a poor man’s prospects of dying cheerful! Haven’t you +any heart, man? And you, ma’am?” this to the superintendent of nurses. “By +the Lord Harry! you’re a woman—you ought to have a little sympathy!” The +aggressiveness died out of the voice, and it took on the old wail Sheila +had first heard.</p> + +<p>“But you forget my professional responsibility in the matter—my +principles as an honorable member of my profession. I cannot allow a +patient of mine wilfully to endanger his life—even shorten it. You must +understand that, Mr. Brandle.”</p> + +<p>A look of amused toleration spread over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> the rubicund face. “Bless your +heart, sonny, you’re not allowing me to shorten it one minute. The boss +and I are prolonging it first-rate. Shouldn’t wonder if it would get to be +so pleasant having her around I’d be working over union hours and +forgetting to quit at all. I’m old enough to be your granddaddy, so take a +bit of advice from me. When you can’t cure a patient, let ’em die their +own way. Now run along, sonny. Good morning, ma’am.” And then to Sheila: +“Get back to that locked door, the three bullet-holes, and the blood patch +on the floor. I’ve got to know what’s on the other side before I touch one +mouthful of that finnan haddie you promised me for breakfast.”</p> + +<p>After that Old King Cole had his way. The doctors visited him as a matter +of form, and Sheila improvised a chart, for he would not stand for having +temperatures taken or pulses counted. “Cut it out, boss, cut it all out. +We’re just going to have a good time, you and me.” And he smiled +seraphically as he drummed on the spread:</p> + +<p class="poem">“Old King Cole—diddy-dum-diddy-dum,<br /> +Was a merry old soul—diddy-dum-diddy-dum.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>On the second day Sheila introduced Peter Brooks into the +“Keeping-On-Going Syndicate,” as the mammoth man termed their temporary +partnership. Sheila had to take some hours off duty, and as the coal +magnate absolutely refused to let another nurse cross his threshold, Peter +seemed to be the only practical solution. She knew the two men would get +on admirably. Peter could be counted on to understand and meet any +emergency that might arise, while Old King Cole would be kept content. And +Sheila was right.</p> + +<p>“Say, we hit it off first-rate—ran together as smooth as a parcel o’ +greased tubs,” the magnate confided to Sheila when she returned. “He told +me a whole lot about you—what you did for him—and the nickname they’d +given you—‘Leerie.’ I like that, but I like my name for you better. Eh, +boss?”</p> + +<p>Once admitted, Peter often availed himself of his membership in the +syndicate. He made a third at their games, turned an attentive ear to the +thriller or added his bit to the enlightenment of the conversation. And +there wasn’t a topic from war to feminine-dress reform that they did not +attack and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> thrash out among them with all the keenness and thoroughness +of three alive and original minds.</p> + +<p>“Puts me thinking of the days when I was switch boss at the Cassie Maguire +Mine. Nothing but a shaver then, working up; nothing to do in the +God-forsaken hole, after work, but talk. We just about settled the affairs +of the world and gave the Lord Almighty advice into the bargain.” The +mammoth man laughed a mammoth laugh. “And when we’d talked ourselves +inside out we’d have some fiddling—always a fiddle among some of the +boys. Never hear one of those old tunes that it don’t take me back to the +Cassie Maguire and the way a fiddle would play the heart back into a +lonely, homesick shaver.” He turned with a suspicious sniff to Sheila. +“Come, boss, the chessboard. Peter’n’me are going to have another Verdun +set-to. Only this time he’s German. See? And if you don’t mind, you might +fill up our pipes and bring us our four-forty bowl.”</p> + +<p>At one time of the day only did the merriment flag—that was at dusk. +“Don’t like it—never did like it,” he confessed. “Something about it that +gets onto my chest and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> turns me gloomy. Don’t suppose you ever smelled +the choke-damp, did you? Well, that’s the feeling. Say, boss, wouldn’t be +a bad plan to shine up that old safety of yours and give us more light in +the old pit. Mother quit about this time o’ day, and it seems like I can’t +forget it.”</p> + +<p>The next day the coal magnate took a turn for the worse. The heart +specialist and the house doctor glowered ominously at Sheila as they came +to make their unwelcome rounds, and Sheila hurried them out of the room as +speedily as she could. Then it was that she thought of the fiddlers three. +An out-of-town orchestra played biweekly at the sanitarium. They were +young men, most of them, still apprentices at their art, and she knew they +would be glad enough for extra earnings. They were due that evening, and +she would engage the services of three violins for the dusk hour the old +man dreaded. She did not accomplish this without a protest from the +business office, warnings from the two physicians, and shocked comments +from the habitual gossips of the sanitarium. But Sheila held her ground +and fought for her way against their combined<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> attacks. “Of course I know +he’s dying. Don’t care if the whole San faints with mortification. I’m +going to see he dies the way he wants to—keep it merry till the end.”</p> + +<p>To the Reverend Mr. Grumble, who requested—nay, demanded—admittance, she +turned a deaf ear while she held the door firmly closed behind her. “Can’t +come in. Sorry, he doesn’t want you. If you must say a last prayer to +comfort yourself, say it in some other room. It will do Old King Cole just +as much good and keep him much happier. Now, please go!”</p> + +<p>So it happened that only Peter was present when the musicians arrived. +Sheila ushered them in with a flourish. “Old King Cole, your fiddlers +three. Now what shall they play?”</p> + +<p>Lucky for the indwellers of the sanitarium that the magnate’s room was in +the tower and therefore little sound escaped. It is improbable if the +final ending would ever have been known to any but those present, whose +discretion could have been relied upon, but for the fact that Miss Jacobs +stood with her ear to the keyhole for fully ten minutes. It was surprising +how quickly everybody<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> knew about it after that. It created almost as much +scandal as Sheila’s own exodus had three years before. Many had the +temerity to take the lift to the third floor and pace with attentive ears +the corridor that led to the tower. These came back to fan the flame of +shocked excitement below. The doctors and Mr. Grumble came to Miss Maxwell +to interfere and put an end to this ungodly and unprofessional humoring of +one departing soul. But the superintendent of nurses refused. She had put +the case in Sheila’s hands, and she had absolute faith in her. So all that +was left to the busybodies and the scandalmongers was to hear what they +could and give free rein to their tongues.</p> + +<p>There was, however, one mitigating fact: they could listen, and they could +talk, but they could not look beyond the closed door of the tower room. +That vivid, appalling picture was mercifully denied them. With a heaping +bowl of egg-nog beside him, and his brierwood between his lips, the coal +magnate beat time on the bedspread with a fast-failing strength, while he +grinned happily at Sheila. Beside him Peter lounged in a wheel-chair, +smoking for company, while grouped<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> about the foot of the bed in the +attitude of a small celestial choir stood the fiddlers three.</p> + +<p>All the good old tunes, reminiscent of younger days of mining-camps and +dance-halls, they played as fast as fingers could fly and bows could +scrape. “Dan Tucker,” “Money Musk,” “The Irish Washerwoman,” and “Pop Goes +the Weasel” sifted in melodic molecules through the keyhole into the +curious and receptive ears outside. And after them came “Captain Jinks” +and “The Blue Danube,” “Yankee Doodle” and “Dixie.”</p> + +<p>“Some boss!” muttered the magnate, thickly, the brierwood dropping on the +floor. “Just one solid streak of anthracite—clear through. Now give us +something else—I don’t care—you choose it, boss.”</p> + +<p>So Leerie chose “The Star-spangled Banner” and “Marching Through Georgia,” +and as dusk crept closer about them, “Suwanee River” and “The Old Kentucky +Home.”</p> + +<p>“Nice, sleepy old tunes,” mumbled the coal magnate. “Guess I’ve napped +over-time.” He opened one eye and looked at Sheila, half amused, half +puzzled. “Say, boss, light up that little old lamp o’ yours and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> take me +down; the shaft’s growing pretty black.”</p> + +<p>The fiddlers played a hymn as their own final contribution. Sheila smiled +wistfully across the dusk to Peter. She knew it wouldn’t matter now, for +Old King Cole was passing beyond the reach of hymns, prayers, or +benedictions.</p> + +<p>“It’s over as far as you or I or he are concerned,” she whispered, +whimsically. “When I come down, by and by, would you very much mind taking +me on one of those rides you promised? I want to forget that white-marble +monument.”</p> + +<p>It was not until a week later that Sheila O’Leary met with one of the big +surprises of her rather eventful existence. A lawyer came down from New +York and asked for her. It seemed that the coal magnate had left her a +considerable number of thousands to spend for him and ease her feelings +about the monument. The codicil was quaintly worded and stated that +inasmuch as “Mother” had gone first, he guessed she would do the next best +by him.</p> + +<p>Sheila took Peter Brooks into her immediate confidence. “Half of it goes +for typhoid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> research and half for a nurses’ home here. We’ve needed one +dreadfully. What staggers me is when did he do it?”</p> + +<p>Peter grinned. “When I happened to be on duty. We fixed it up, and I was +to keep the secret. He had lots of fun over it—poor old soul!”</p> + +<p>“Merry old soul,” corrected Sheila.</p> + +<p>And when the nurses’ home was built Sheila flatly ignored all the +suggestions of a memorial tablet with appropriate scriptural verses to +grace the cornerstone or hang in the entrance-hall.</p> + +<p>“Won’t have it—never do in the world! Just going to have his picture over +the living-room fireplace.”</p> + +<p>And there it hangs—a gigantic reproduction of Old King Cole, done by the +greatest poster artist of America.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="Chapter_III" id="Chapter_III"></a>Chapter III</h2> +<h3>THE CHANGELING</h3> + +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">He</span> arrived in the arms of his mother, the mulatto nurse having in some +inexplicable and inconsiderate fashion acquired measles on the ship coming +from their small South American republic. Francisco Enrique Manuel Machado +y Rodriguez—Pancho, for short—and his mother were allowed to disembark +only because of his appalling lack of health and her promise to take +harborage in a hospital instead of a hotel.</p> + +<p>Having heard of the sanitarium from her sister-in-law’s brother’s wife’s +aunt, who had been there herself, and having traveled already over a +thousand miles, the additional hundred or so seemed too trivial to bother +about. So the señora kept her promise to the officials by buying her +ticket thitherward, and Flanders, the bus-driver, arrived just in time to +see three porters unload them and their luggage on the small station +platform.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> The señora was weeping bitterly, the powder spattered and +smeared all over her pretty, shallow little face; Pancho was clawing and +scratching the air, while he shrieked at the top of his lungs—the only +part of him that gave any evidence of strength.</p> + +<p>Having disposed of the luggage, Flanders hurried back to the assistance of +the señora, whereupon the brown atom clawed him instead of the air and +fortissimoed his shrieking. Flanders promptly returned him to his mother, +backing away to the bus and muttering something about “letting wildcat’s +cubs be.”</p> + +<p>“Wil’cat?” repeated the señora through her sobs. “I don’t know what ees +wil’cat. I theenk eet ees one leetle deevil. Tsa, Panchito! Ciera la +boca.” And she shook him.</p> + +<p>During the drive to the sanitarium Flanders cast periodic glances within. +Each time he looked the atom appeared to be shrieking louder, while his +mother was shaking harder and longer. By the time they had reached their +destination the breath had been shaken quite out of him. He lay back +panting in his mother’s arms, with only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> strength enough for a feeble and +occasional snarl. His bonnet of lace and cerise-pink ribbon had come +untied and had slipped from his head, disclosing a mass of black hair +curled by nature and matted by neglect. It gave the last uncanny touch to +the brown atom’s appearance and caused Hennessy, who was sweeping the +crossing, to drop his broom and stare agape at the new arrivals.</p> + +<p>“Faith, is it one o’ them Brazilian monkeys?” he whispered, pulling +Flanders by the sleeve. “I’ve heard the women are makin’ pets o’ them, +although I never heard they were after fixin’ them up wi’ lace an’ ribbons +like that.”</p> + +<p>“It’s a kid.” Flanders stated the fact without any degree of positiveness +as he rubbed three fingers cautiously down his cheek. He was feeling for +scars. “Guess it’s a kid all right, but it scratches like a cat, gosh durn +it!”</p> + +<p>Hennessy, however, shook a positive head. “That’s no kid. Can’t ye see for +yourself it’s noways human? Accordin’ to the Sunday papers it’s all the +style for blond dancers an’ society belles to be fetchin’ one o’ them +little apes about. They’re thinkin’ if they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> hang a bit o’ live ugliness +furninst, their beauty will look all the more ravishin’.”</p> + +<p>“Live ugliness,” repeated Flanders; then he laughed. “You’ve struck it, +Hennessy.”</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Francisco Enrique Manuel Machado y Rodriguez—Pancho, for +short—and his mother had passed into the hands of the sanitarium porter. +He had handed them on to the business office, which in turn had handed +them over to the superintendent. The superintendent had shared the +pleasure with the house staff, the staff had retired in favor of the baby +specialist, and at half past seven o’clock that night neither he nor the +superintendent of nurses had been able to coax, argue, command, or +threaten a nurse into taking the case.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid you will have to do with an undergraduate and make the best of +it.” Miss Maxwell acknowledged her helplessness with a faint smile.</p> + +<p>But Doctor Fuller shook his head. “Won’t do. It means skilled care and +watching for days. A nurse without experience would be about as much good +as an incubator. Think if you dismissed the four who’ve refused, you could +frighten a fifth into taking it?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>This time the superintendent of nurses shook her head. “Not this case. +They all feel about it the same way. Miss Jacobs tells me she didn’t take +her training to nurse monkeys.”</p> + +<p>The old doctor chuckled. “Don’t know as I blame her; thought it was a new +species myself when I first clapped eyes on it. But shucks! I’ve seen some +of our North American babies look like Lincoln Imps when they were down +with marasmus. Give me a few weeks and a good nurse and his own mother +wouldn’t recognize—” He interrupted himself with a pounding fist on the +desk. “Where’s Leerie?”</p> + +<p>“You can’t have her—not this time.” Miss Maxwell’s lips became a fraction +more firm, while her eyes sharpened into what her training girls had come +to call her “forceps expression.”</p> + +<p>“Why not?”</p> + +<p>“The girl’s just off that case for Doctor Fritz; she’s tired out. Remember +she’s been through three unbroken years of hospitals, and we’ve worked her +on every hard case we’ve had since she came back. I’m going to see that +she gets forty-eight hours of rest now.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>“Let her have them next time.” Doctor Fuller put all his persuasive charm +into the words. “I need Leerie—some one who can roll up her sleeves and +pitch in. Let me have her just this once.”</p> + +<p>But Miss Maxwell was obdurate. “She’s asleep now, and she’s going to sleep +as long as she needs to. I’ll give you Miss Grant—she’s had a month at +the Maternity at Rochester.”</p> + +<p>“A month!” Scorn curled up the ends of the doctor’s mustache. The next +instant they were almost touching in a broad grin. “Leerie likes cases +like this—just eats them up. I’m going after her.” And before the +superintendent of nurses could hold him he was down the corridor on his +way to the nurses’ dormitory.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes later he was back, grinning harder than ever. He had only time +to thrust his head in the door and wave a triumphant arm. “She’s +dressing—as big a fool about babies as I am! Said she’d slept a whole +hour and felt fresh as a daisy. How’s that for spunk?”</p> + +<p>“I call it nerve.” Miss Maxwell smiled a hopeless smile. “What am I going +to do<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> with you doctors? You wear out all my best nurses and you won’t +take—” But Doctor Fuller had fled.</p> + +<p>In spite of his boast of her, the baby specialist saw Sheila O’Leary +visibly cringe when she took her first look at Pancho. He lay sprawling on +his mother’s bed in a room littered with hastily opened bags and trunks +out of which had been pulled clothing of all kinds and hues. He had been +relieved of the lace and pink ribbons and was swathed only in shirt and +roundabout, his arms and legs projected like licorice sticks; being of the +same color and very nearly the same thickness. He was dozing, tired out +with the combination of much travel, screaming, shaking, and loss of +breath. So wasted was he that the skin seemed drawn tight over temple and +cheek-bones; the eyes were pitifully sunken, and colorless lips fell back +over toothless gums.</p> + +<p>“How old is—it?” Sheila whispered at last.</p> + +<p>“About nine months.”</p> + +<p>Sheila shuddered. “Just the adorable age. Ought to be all pink cheeks, +dimples, and creases—and look at it!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>“I know, but wait. Give us time and we’ll get some of those things +started.” Doctor Fuller wagged his head by way of encouragement.</p> + +<p>Sheila answered with a deprecatory shake. “This time I don’t believe you. +That would be a miracle, and you can do about everything but miracles. +Honestly, it doesn’t seem as if I could touch it; looks about a thousand +years old and just human enough to be horrible.”</p> + +<p>The old doctor eyed her askance. “Not going back on me, are you?”</p> + +<p>“Of course I’m not, but there’s no use in making believe it will be any +joy-game. I’ll be hating it every minute I’m on the case.”</p> + +<p>“Hate it as much as you like, only stick to it. Hello there, bub!” This to +the brown atom, who was opening his eyes.</p> + +<p>The eyes were large and brown and as soft and appealing as a baby seal’s. +For a moment they looked with strange, wondering intensity at the two +figures bending over it, then with sudden doubling and undoubling of +fists, a frantic upheaval of brown legs, the atom opened volcanically and +poured forth scream after scream. It writhed, it clawed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> the air, it +looked every whit as horrible as Sheila had claimed.</p> + +<p>“Going to run?” the old doctor asked, anxiously.</p> + +<p>For answer Sheila bent down lower and picked up the writhing mass. With a +firm hand she braced it against her shoulder, patting it gently and +swaying her body rhythmically to the patting. “Some eyes and some temper!” +laughed Sheila. “Where’s the mother?”</p> + +<p>The screaming brought the corridor nurse to the door. “Where’s the +mother?” Sheila repeated.</p> + +<p>The corridor nurse pointed to the strewn luggage and gave a contemptuous +shrug. “Gone down to dinner looking like a bird of paradise. She said if +the baby cried I was to stir up some of that milk from that can, mix it +with water from that faucet, put it in that bottle, and feed it to him.” +Words failed to convey the outraged disgust in her voice.</p> + +<p>The milk indicated was condensed milk in a half-emptied can; the bottle +was the regulation kind for babies and as filthy as dirty glass could +look. Sheila and Doctor Fuller exchanged glances.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>“Plenty of fight in the little beggar or he wouldn’t be outlasting—” The +doctor swallowed the remainder of the sentence, cut short by a startled +look on Sheila’s face.</p> + +<p>The screams had stopped a minute before, and Sheila believed the atom had +dropped asleep. But instead of feeling the tiny body relax as a sleeping +baby’s will, it was growing slowly rigid. With this realization she strode +to the bed and put the atom down. Before their eyes the body stiffened, +while the head rolled slowly from side to side and under the half-closed +lids the eyeballs rolled with it.</p> + +<p>“Convulsions!” announced the corridor nurse, with an anxious look toward +the door. Then, as a bell tinkled, she voiced her relief in a quick +breath. “That’s sixty-one. I’m hiking—”</p> + +<p>“No, you don’t!” The doctor jerked her back; he wanted to shake her. +“You’ll hustle some hot water for us, and then you’ll stand by to hustle +some more. See?” He was shedding all unnecessary clothing as he spoke, and +Sheila was peeling the atom free of shirt and roundabout as fast as +skilled fingers could move.</p> + +<p>It is a wonderful thing to watch the fight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> between human skill and death +for the life of a baby. So little it takes to swing the victory either +way, so close does it border on the miraculous, that few can stand and see +without feeling the silent, invisible presence of the Nazarene. A life +thus saved seems to gather unto itself a special significance and value +for those who have fought for it and those who receive it again. It +creates new feelings and a clearer vision in blind, unthinking motherhood; +it awakens to a vital response hitherto dormant fatherhood. And even the +callous outsider becomes exalted with the wonder and closeness of that +unseen presence.</p> + +<p>As the brown atom writhed from one convulsion into another, Sheila and the +old doctor worked with compressed lips and almost suspended breath; they +worked like a single mind supplied with twice the usual amount of +auxiliaries. They saw, without acknowledging it, the gorgeous, tropical +figure that came and stood half-way between the door and the bed; lips +carmined, throat and cheeks heavy with powder, jewels covering ears, neck, +fingers, and wrists, she looked absurdly unreal beside the nurse in her +uniform and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> the doctor in his shirt-sleeves. Occasionally Sheila glanced +at her. If they won, would the mother care? The question came back to her +consciousness again and again. In her own experience she knew how often +the thing one called motherhood would come into actual existence after a +struggle like this when birth itself had failed to accomplish anything but +a physical obligation. Believing this, Sheila fought the harder.</p> + +<p>After an hour the convulsions subsided. A few more drops of brandy were +poured down the tiny throat, and slowly the heart took up its regulation +work. Sheila wrapped the atom in a blanket, put it back on the bed, and +beckoned to the mother.</p> + +<p>Curiosity seemed to be the one governing emotion of the señora. She looked +without any trace of grief, and, having looked, she spoke impassively: “I +theenk eet dead. Yes?”</p> + +<p>Doctor Fuller, with perspiration pouring from him, transfixed her with a +stare. “No! That baby’s going to get well now, and you’re going to let +Miss O’Leary teach you how to take proper care of it. Understand?” Then +clapping his fellow-fighter on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> the back, he beamed down upon her. +“Leerie, you’re one grand soldier!”</p> + +<p>The monotone of the gorgeous señora broke up any response Sheila might +have given. “I theenk eet die, all the same,” came the impassive voice. +“The <i>padre</i> on the ship make it all ready for die—I theenk yes pret’ +soon.”</p> + +<p>“No!” The doctor fairly thundered it forth.</p> + +<p>She stooped and pulled away a fold of the blanket with the tips of her +fingers. “Eet look ver’ ugly—like eet die. I theenk—all the same.”</p> + +<p>The doctor caught up his cast-off clothing and flung himself out of the +room. Sheila watched him go, a faint smile pulling at the corners of her +mouth. Strange! He had so evidently reached the end of his self-control, +optimism, and patience, while she was just beginning to find hers. In the +sweep of a second things looked wonderfully clear and hopeful. She thought +she could understand what was in the mind and heart of the señora; what +was more significant, she thought she could understand the reason for it. +And what you can understand you can cope with.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>She watched the señora searching in this trunk and that; she saw her jerk +forth a diminutive dress of embroidery and fluted lace; while she thought +the whole thing through to the finish and smiled one of her old +inscrutable smiles.</p> + +<p>“Pret’ dress,” said the señora. “Plent’ lace and reebon. You put on for +bury eet—I go find <i>padre</i>.”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Sheila, emphatically, “you stay here. I’ll go and find the +<i>padre</i>.”</p> + +<p>She left them both in the charge of the corridor nurse and flew for the +telephone. It took her less than a minute to get Father O’Friel; it took +but a trifle more for her to outline her plan and bind him to it. And +Father O’Friel, with a comprehension to match his conscientiousness, and a +sense of humor to match them both, hardly knew whether to be shocked or +amused.</p> + +<p>“Why not appeal to the baby’s father?”</p> + +<p>“Realize it takes a month for a letter to reach that little South American +ant-hill? Write now if you want to, but let me be trying my way while the +letter is traveling.”</p> + +<p>“All right. But if it doesn’t work—”</p> + +<p>“It will. When my feelings about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> anything run all to the good this way, +I’d bank anything on them. Now please hurry.”</p> + +<p>So it came about that instead of a burial service that night Father +O’Friel conducted an original and unprecedented adoption ceremony. Without +even a witness the señora signed a paper which she showed no inclination +to read and which she would hardly have understood had she attempted it. +It was enough for her that she could give away Francisco Enrique Manuel +Machado y Rodriguez to a foolish nurse who was plainly anxious to be +bothered with him. Death had seemed the only release from an obligation +that exhausted and frightened her, and from which neither pleasure nor +personal pride could be obtained. But this was another way mercifully held +out to her, and she accepted it with gratitude and absolute belief. +Eagerly she agreed to the conditions Sheila laid down; the father was to +be notified and forced to make a life settlement on the atom; in the mean +time she was to remain at the sanitarium, pay all expenses, and interfere +in no way with the nurse or the baby. So desirous was she to display her +gratitude that she heaped the atom’s wardrobe—lace,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> ribbons, and +embroidery—upon Sheila, and kissed the hem of Father O’Friel’s cassock.</p> + +<p>“<i>Qué gracioso—qué magnifico!</i>” Then she yawned behind her tinted nails. +“I have ver’ much the sleep. I find anothaire room and make what you +call—<i>la cama</i>.” At the door she turned and cast a farewell look upon the +blanketed bundle. “Eet look ver’ ugly—all the same I theenk eet die.”</p> + +<p>It took barely ten minutes for word of the adoption to reach Doctor +Fuller, and it brought him running. “Good Lord! Leerie, are you crazy? Did +you think I pulled you out of bed to-night to start an orphan-asylum? What +do you mean, girl?”</p> + +<p>Sheila looked down at her newly acquired possession, and for the first +time that night the strange, luminous look that was all her own, that had +won for her her nickname of Leerie, crept into her eyes; they fairly +dazzled the old doctor with their shining. “Honestly, don’t know myself. +Still testing out my feelings in my think laboratory.”</p> + +<p>“You can’t raise that baby and keep on with your nursing. Too much +responsibility, anyway, for a young person. What’s more,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> the mother +shouldn’t be allowed to dodge it. She can be made fit.”</p> + +<p>“How are you going to do it? Train her with harness and braces? Or moral +suasion—or the courts?”</p> + +<p>“And I thought you hated it, couldn’t bear to touch it,” growled the baby +specialist.</p> + +<p>“Did. But that’s past tense. Since I fought for it, it’s suddenly become +remarkably precious. And that’s the precise feeling I’m testing up in the +lab.”</p> + +<p>“In the name of common sense what do you mean, Leerie?”</p> + +<p>She patted his arm soothingly. “There, there. Go to bed; you’re tuckered +out. Leave me alone for two months, and I’ll tell you. And suppose you +write down that milk formula before you go; he’s going to wake up as +fighting hungry as a little tiger-cat.”</p> + +<p>How the sanitarium took the news of the arrivals and the rumor of the +adoption, what they thought of the gorgeous and irresponsible señora and +Leerie’s latest exploit, does not concern the story. It is enough to say +that tongues wagged abundantly; and when Sheila appeared some ten days +later in the pine grove wheeling a perambulator every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> one who was out and +could manufacture the flimsiest excuse for her curiosity hurried to the +carriage and thrust an inquisitive head under the hood. It seemed as if +hundreds blocked the walk from the pond to the rest-house.</p> + +<p>“Bad as a circus parade,” thought Sheila. “Can’t stay here, or they’ll put +us in a tent and ask admission.” Then she spied Hennessy coming with his +platter of bread for the swans, and called to him. Somehow he managed to +scatter the crowd, and Sheila clung to the sleeve of his blue jumper as if +it had been so much cork to a man overboard. “Listen, Hennessy, I want to +take Pancho away from the San. You and Marm have a cozy place, and it’s +far enough away. There’s only the two of you. Can’t you take us in?”</p> + +<p>But Hennessy was likewise thrusting a head under the hood. “Honest to God, +Miss Leerie, is it human?”</p> + +<p>“Hennessy, don’t be an idiot!”</p> + +<p>“But I saw the face on it—an’ the scratchin’ it did the day it was +fetched in. Does it still be scratchin’?”</p> + +<p>“Sometimes.” Sheila smiled faintly. “He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> hasn’t had time yet to forget all +those shakings. Well, can we come?”</p> + +<p>Hennessy eyed the perambulator fearsomely. “Have to ask Marm. Faith, do ye +think, now, if it had been human, its mother would have given it away same +as if it had been a young cat or dog too many in the litter?”</p> + +<p>“Mothers don’t have to love their babies; there’s no birth license to +sign, you know, with a love-and-cherish clause in it. Just come, wanted or +not, and afterward—”</p> + +<p>But Hennessy was deep in speculations of his own. “Now if it was Ireland, +Miss Leerie, do ye know what I would be thinkin’?”</p> + +<p>“What?”</p> + +<p>He lowered his voice and looked furtively over his shoulder. “A +changeling! Sure as you’re born, Miss Leerie, I’m thinkin’ it’s one o’ +them little black imps the fairies leave in place o’ the real child +they’re after stealin’. I disremember if they have the likes o’ that in +South America, but that’s my notion, just the same.”</p> + +<p>Sheila O’Leary laughed inside and out. “Hennessy, you’re wonderful. And +who but an Irishman would have thought of it!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> A changeling—a most +changeable changeling! What’s the treatment?”</p> + +<p>“A good brewin’ of egg-shells—goose egg-shells if ye have ’em, hens’ if +ye haven’t. But don’t ye be laughin’; ’tis a sign o’ black doin’s, an’ +laughin’ might bring bad luck on ye.”</p> + +<p>Sheila sobered. “We’ll brew egg-shells. Now hurry home to Marm and coax +her hard, Hennessy.”</p> + +<p>Because Sheila O’Leary invariably had her way among the many who loved and +believed in her, and because Hennessy and Marm Hennessy were numbered +conspicuously among these, Sheila and her adopted moved early the +following morning into the diminutive and immaculate house of Hennessy, +with a vine-covered porch in front and a hen-yard in the rear. And that +night there was a plentiful brew of egg-shells on the kitchen stove, done +in the most approved Irish fashion, with the atom near by to inhale the +fumes.</p> + +<p>“Maybe ’twill work, an’ then again maybe ’twon’t.” Hennessy looked +anxious. “Magic, like anything else, often spoils in transportatin’.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>“Oh, it will work!” Sheila spoke with conviction. “And we’ll hope the +señora’s letter won’t travel too fast.”</p> + +<p>So the names of Sheila O’Leary and Francisco Enrique Manuel Machado y +Rodriguez were crossed off the books of the sanitarium, and the gossips +saw them no more. Only Doctor Fuller and Peter Brooks sought them out in +their new quarters, the doctor to attend professionally, Peter to attend +to the dictates of a persistent heart. Never a day went by that he did not +find his feet trailing the dust on the road to the house of Hennessy, and +Sheila dropped into the habit of watching for him from the vine-covered +porch at a certain time every afternoon. The picture of the best nurse at +the sanitarium sitting in a little old rocker with the brown atom kicking +and crowing on her lap, and looking down the steps with eyes that seemed +to grow daily more luminous, came to be an accepted reality to both Peter +and the doctor—as much of a reality as the reaching out of the atom’s +small tendril-like fingers to curl about one’s thumb or to cling to one’s +watch-charm.</p> + +<p>“Loving little cuss,” muttered Peter one afternoon. “Can you tell me how +any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> mother under the sun could resist those eyes or the clutch of those +brown paws?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t forget one point,” Sheila spoke quietly; “he wasn’t a loving little +cuss then.”</p> + +<p>“He’ll go down on the books as my pet case,” chuckled the doctor. “Four +pounds in four weeks! Think of it, on a whole-milk formula!”</p> + +<p>Hennessy wagged his head knowingly at Sheila, and when they had gone he +snorted forth his contempt for professional ignorance. “Milk! +Fiddlesticks! Sure a docthor don’t know everything. ’Twas the egg-shells +that done it, an’ Marm an’ me can bear witness he quit the scratchin’ an’ +began the smilin’ from that very hour. Look at him now! Can ye deny it, +Miss Leerie?”</p> + +<p>“I’m not wanting to, Hennessy.” Whereupon Sheila proved the matter by +reducing the atom to squeals of joy while she retold the old history of +the pigs with the aid of five little brown toes.</p> + +<p>Between Peter and Hennessy, Sheila came into possession of many facts +concerning the señora. Her dresses and her jewels were the talk of the +sanitarium. She applied herself diligently to all beautifying treatments +and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> the charming of susceptible young men. Presumably life to her meant +only a continuous process of adorning herself and receiving admiration. So +she spent her days dressing and basking in the company of a dozen +different swains, and the atom cast no annoying shadow on her pathway.</p> + +<p>August came, and the atom discovered his legs. Sheila disregarded the lace +and ribbons with a sigh of relief and took to making rompers. They were +adorable rompers with smocking and the palest of pink collars and belts. +The licorice sticks had changed to a rich olive brown and had assumed +sufficient rotundity to allow of pink-and-white socks and white +ankle-ties. In all the busy years of her nursing Sheila had never had time +for anything like this; she had never had a baby for longer than a week or +two at a time. Just as she was beginning to feel her individual share in +them they had all gone the way of properly parented offspring, and never +had she sewed a single baby dress. She gloried in the lengths of dimity +and poplin, in the intricacies of new stitches and embroidery. And Peter, +watching from a step on the porch, gloried in the picture she made.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>When a romper was finished it had to be tried on that very minute. She +would whisk up the atom from the hammock where he lay kicking, and slip +him into it, holding him high for Peter to admire.</p> + +<p>“He’s a cherub done in bronze,” said Peter, one day. “Here, give him to +me.” And later, as he perched him on his shoulder and tickled his ribs +until he squirmed with glee he announced, “If I wasn’t a homeless bachelor +I’d take him off your hands in about two minutes.”</p> + +<p>“What’s that?” shouted Doctor Fuller, coming down the street. “Did you say +anything about re-adoption? Well, you might as well know now that Mrs. +Fuller and I intend taking Pancho off Leerie’s hands as soon as she’s +ready to go back to work again. Aren’t you getting lazy, Leerie?”</p> + +<p>For once Sheila failed to respond in kind to the doctor’s chaffing. All +the shine faded out of her eyes. “Can’t believe two months have gone—a +month for a letter to go, a month for an answer to come. I’m afraid none +of us will keep him very much longer.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t worry, they won’t want him back. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>Besides, they’ve forfeited +their right to him,” the old doctor snorted, indignantly.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="bbox" style="width: 440px; height: 550px;"><img src="images/ill02.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="center">Holding him high for Peter to admire</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>“Not legally. When the letter comes, you’ll see.” There was none of the +anticipated delight in Sheila’s voice that had been there on that first +night when she had laid her plans and sworn Father O’Friel into backing +her up. Her voice was as colorless as her eyes were dull; for some +miraculous reason the life and inner light that seemed such an inseparable +part of her had suddenly gone out. She reached up and removed the atom +from Peter’s shoulder.</p> + +<p>Hennessy, who had joined the group, was the last to speak. “Sure it’s +mortial good of both ye gentlemen to lift the throuble o’ raisin’ the wee +one off Miss Leerie, but if any one lifts it, it’s Marm an’ me. We had +that settled the next morning after we fetched him over an’ knew ’twas the +real one we’d got, after all.”</p> + +<p>“The real one? What do you mean by that?” The doctor looked puzzled.</p> + +<p>Hennessy winked his only answer.</p> + +<p>Through the first days of September Sheila waited with feverish anxiety. +The hours spent on the vine-covered porch with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> atom, asleep or awake, +for steady company, and Peter for occasional, passed all too quickly. For +the first time in her life Sheila wished days back; she would have put a +checking hand on time had she had the power. Then just as she was making +up her mind that her fear was for nothing, that her plans had gloriously +failed and Pancho was to be hers for all time, the wretched news came. +Peter brought it, hurrying hatless down the street, and Sheila, knowing in +her heart what had happened, went down the steps to meet him.</p> + +<p>“Is it a letter—or a wire—or what? And where’s the señora?”</p> + +<p>“Having hysterics in front of the business office.” Peter stopped to get +his breath. “The husband wired from New York—he’ll be down on the morning +train. It seems the señora wired him when she first got here that Pancho +was dying, so she didn’t see any need of changing it in her letter. She +said she wanted the money for a monument and masses—and he could send it +in a draft. Guess he thought more of the boy than the mother did, for he’s +come up to bring the body home and put up the monument down<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> there. Now +she doesn’t know what to tell him. Can you beat that for straight +fiction?”</p> + +<p>Sheila picked up the atom and disappeared inside without a word. When she +reappeared a few minutes later, the atom was arrayed in his most becoming +romper, his black curls were brushed into an encircling halo, his hands +clapping over some consciousness of pleasurable excitement. Sheila tucked +him into his carriage and faced Peter with a grim look of command. “You’re +to play policeman, understand! Walk back of me all the way. If I show any +sign of turning back or running away, arrest me on the spot.”</p> + +<p>“What are you going to do?”</p> + +<p>“What two months ago I thought would be the easiest thing in the +world—and what I wouldn’t be doing now for a million dollars if I hadn’t +given my word to Father O’Friel and the law wasn’t against me.”</p> + +<p>As Peter had rightfully reported, the señora was having hysterics in front +of the business office, with the business and hospital staff trying their +best to quench her, and as many patients as the lobby would hold watching +in varying degrees of curiosity. Only one of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> Latin blood could have +achieved a scene of such melodramatic abandon and stamped it as genuine, +but no one present doubted the grief and despair of the señora as she +paced the floor wringing her hands and wailing in her native tongue. +Sheila entered by way of the basement and the lift, and she wheeled the +atom’s carriage into the inner circle of the crowd, with Peter still in +attendance.</p> + +<p>For the moment the interest swerved from the weeping figure to the cooing +occupant of the carriage. The atom was still clapping his hands, and a +pink flush of excitement tinged the olive of the cheeks. “Look at that +cunning baby!”... “Isn’t he a darling?”... “Why, isn’t that the South +American baby?”... “Sh-h-h—deformed or something.”... “Of course, it +can’t be.” Sentences, whole and in fragments, came to Sheila as she pushed +her way through the crowd.</p> + +<p>Something of this new interest must have penetrated the señora’s +consciousness, for her wailing ceased; she cocked her head on one side +like a listening parrakeet. “Who say babee? I theenk—I theenk—” Then she +saw Sheila. A look of immediate recognition swept over her face, but it +was gone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> the instant she looked at the atom. “Who that babee?” she +demanded.</p> + +<p>“Mine.” Sheila pinned her with steady eyes, while her mouth looked as if +it could never grow gentle and demure again.</p> + +<p>Incredulity, suspicion, amazement, were all registered on the pretty, +shallow face. “Your babee? How you get babee?”</p> + +<p>Sheila made no answer.</p> + +<p>The señora looked again at the atom; she held out a timorous finger to +him. He responded cordially by curling a small fist promptly about it. +“<i>Madre de Dios, qué bonito! Qué chico y hermoso!</i>” Then, to Sheila: “I +give you seeck babee—eet no die? You make thees babee out of seeck babee, yes?”</p> + +<p>Sheila still remained silent.</p> + +<p>The señora turned to the atom for the confirmation she desired. “<i>Nene, +como te llamas?</i>”</p> + +<p>It was intensely entertaining to the atom. He wagged the señora’s finger +frantically, tossed back his head, and gave forth a low, gurgling laugh. +“<i>Jesu!</i> That ees hees papa. He look like that when he laugh. <i>Tu nombre, +nene—tu nombre?</i>” With a fresh<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> outburst she sank down beside the +carriage and buried her face in the brown legs and pink socks.</p> + +<p>But the atom did not approve of this. His lower lip dropped and quivered; +he reached out his arm to Sheila. “Ma-ma-ma-ma,” he coaxed.</p> + +<p>“You no ma-ma, I ma-ma.” The señora was on her feet, shaking an angry fist +at Sheila. But in an instant her anger was gone; she was down on her knees +again, clasping Sheila’s skirt, while her voice wailed forth in +supplication. “You no keep leetle babee? You ver’ good, ver’ kind, +señorita—you <i>muy simpatica</i>, yes? You give leetle babee. I ma-ma. Yes?”</p> + +<p>But Sheila O’Leary stood grim and unyielding. “No. He is mine. When he was +sick, dying, you didn’t want him. You did not like to look at him because +he was ugly; you did not like to hear him cry—so you abused him. Now, +he’s all well; he’s a pretty baby; he does not cry; he does not scratch. I +never shake him; he loves me very, very much. Now I keep him!” Thus Sheila +delivered her ultimatum.</p> + +<p>But the señora still clung. “I no shake<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> babee now. I love babee now. +Please—please—his pa-pa come. You give heem back?”</p> + +<p>Sheila unclasped the señora’s hands, turned the atom’s carriage about, and +deliberately wheeled him away.</p> + +<p>Out of the lobby to the sidewalk she was pursued by pleading cries, +expostulating reproofs, as well as actual particles of the crowd itself, +the Reverend Mr. Grumble, the wife of one of the trustees, a handful of +protesting patients, following to urge the rights of the prostrated +mother. But Sheila refused to be held back or argued with; stoically she +kept on her way. When she reached the little vine-covered porch only +Peter, Father O’Friel, and Doctor Fuller remained as escort.</p> + +<p>“You can’t keep him, Leerie. You’ve got to give him up.” The old doctor +spoke sorrowfully but firmly.</p> + +<p>“It was only a mock adoption, and you promised if she ever wanted him back +she should have him,” Father O’Friel reminded her.</p> + +<p>“She’s his mother, after all,” Peter put in, lamely.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>At that Sheila exploded. “You men make me tired! ‘She’s his mother, after +all.’ After all what? Cruelty, neglect, heartlessness, hoping he would +die—glad to be rid of him! That’s about all the sense of justice you +have. Let a woman weep and call for her baby, and every man within earshot +would hand him over without considering for a moment what kind of care she +would give him. Oh, you—make—me—sick!” Sheila buried her face in the +nape of Pancho’s neck.</p> + +<p>Doctor Fuller, who had always known her, who had stood by her in her +disgrace when she had been sent away from the sanitarium three years +before and had believed in her implicitly in spite of all damning +evidence, who had fought for her a dozen times when she had called down +upon her head the wrath of the business office, looked now upon her +silent, shaking figure with open-mouthed astonishment. In all those years +he had never seen Leerie cry, and he couldn’t quite stand it.</p> + +<p>“There, there, child! We understand—we’re not quite the duffers you make +us out. Of course, by all rights, human and moral,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> the little shaver +belongs to you, but you can’t keep him, just the same.”</p> + +<p>“Know it! Needn’t rub it in! Wasn’t going to!” Sheila raised a wet face, +with red-rimmed eyes and lips that trembled outrageously. She couldn’t +steady them to save her, and so she let them tremble while she stuttered +forth her last protest. “Didn’t think for a moment I wouldn’t give him +back, d-d-did you? That was my plan—my way. I wanted Father O’Friel to +let me try—t-t-t-thought all along he’d grow into such an ad-d-d-dorable +mite his m-m-m-mother’d be wanting him back. What I didn’t count on was my +wanting to k-k-keep him.” Sheila swallowed hard. She wanted to get rid of +that everlasting choke in her throat. When she spoke again her voice was +steadier. “But I tell you one thing. She doesn’t get him without fighting +for him. She’s going to fight for him as I fought that night in the +sanitarium, and you’re going to help me keep her fighting. Understand? +Then perhaps when she gets him she’ll have some faint notion of how +precious a baby can be.” With a more grim expression than any of the three +had ever seen on her usually luminous face,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> Sheila O’Leary shouldered the +atom and disappeared within the house.</p> + +<p>The three men stood by her while Hennessy guarded the house. For the rest +of the day the señora, backed by the business office and a procession of +interested sympathizers, stormed the parish house and demanded to see the +paper that she had signed. They stormed Doctor Fuller’s office and +demanded his co-operation, or at least what information he had to give. +They consulted the one lawyer in the town and three others within car +distance, but their advice availed little, inasmuch as Father O’Friel had +refused to give up the paper until the baby’s father arrived, and they +could get no intelligent idea from the señora of how legal the adoption +had been made. By keeping perfectly dumb the three were able to hold the +crowd in abeyance, and the señora, looking anything but a bird of +paradise, came back to them again and again to weep, to plead, to bribe.</p> + +<p>The excitement held until midnight, an unprecedented occurrence for the +sanitarium. It was still dark the next morning when Hennessy was roused +from the haircloth sofa in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> the hall, where he was still keeping guard, by +the fumbling of a hand on the door-knob. “Who’s there?” roared Hennessy.</p> + +<p>“Please—eet ees me—the Señora Machado y Rodriguez.”</p> + +<p>“Go ’way! Shoo-oo!” Hennessy banged the door with his fist as he always +banged the bread-platter to scatter the swans.</p> + +<p>“I go when I see babee,” came the feeble response to his racket.</p> + +<p>“Let her in, Hennessy,” came the voice of Sheila from up-stairs.</p> + +<p>Hennessy unbarred the door, and a shaken, pathetic little figure crept in. +All the coy prettiness was gone for the moment; the swollen eyes had +circles about them, the cheeks were sallow and free of powder as the lips +were free of carmine. The mouth quivered like a grief-stricken child’s. +“Please—please—I see babee?” came the wail again.</p> + +<p>“Yes. Come up softly,” Sheila called from the head of the stairs.</p> + +<p>The little figure crept up eagerly. Sheila put out an arm and led her into +a room where a single candle burned beside the bed. There lay the atom, +rosy and dimpling in his sleep.</p> + +<p>It is to be doubted if the señora had ever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> dreamed of such a possession +after the appalling reality of the original Francisco Enrique Manuel +Machado y Rodriguez. In her ignorance and youth she had accepted ugliness, +sickness, and peevish crying as the normal attributes of babyhood, and +because of this she had loathed it. Therefore to be suddenly confronted +with her awful mistake, to find that she had thrown away something that +was beautiful and enchanting, to know she had forfeited what might have +been hers, to feel in a small degree the first longing of motherhood and +be denied it—all this was born into the slowly awakening consciousness of +the señora. It almost transformed her face into homely holiness as she +made her one supreme prayer and sacrifice. “You give me my babee—now—you +give heem and not keep—and I give you all these. See?” She held out her +hands that had been clasped under the heavy mantilla that covered her head +and shoulders. Opening them, she thrust them close, that Sheila might +look. They were filled with jewels—the jewels she adored, that had +contributed a large part to the joy of her existence. Pins, rings, +necklaces, bracelets—the señora had not kept<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> back a single ornament. +“You—you and the blessed Maria will give heem back to me?”</p> + +<p>“Get down and pray to the Maria,” commanded Sheila. “Promise her that if +she will give your baby back to you you will take care of him for ever and +ever. Never neglect him, never shake nor slap him, never give him bad milk +to make him sick. Promise you’ll always love him and keep him laughing and +pretty. And remember—break your promise, let anything happen to Pancho +again, and Maria will not give him back to you another time.”</p> + +<p>The sanitarium never learned in detail how Señor Machado became reconciled +to a live son, not being present when the news was conveyed to him. They +saw him arrive, however, looking very much shaken with his bereavement, +and they saw him depart with his son perched high upon his shoulder, +wearing the expression of one who has come unexpectedly into a great +possession, while the señora clung to them both. The sanitarium waved them +off with gladness and satisfaction—all but four unsmiling outsiders. So +great a hole can a departing atom sometimes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> leave behind that those four +who had given him temporary care and guardianship went about for days with +sorrow written plainly upon them. Hennessy fed the swans in bitter +silence; Peter moped, with a laugh for no one; Doctor Fuller groaned +whenever South America was mentioned; while all three knew they could not +even fathom the deepness or the bigness of that hole for Sheila.</p> + +<p>Peter took her for a twilight ride in his car the first empty night. “Go +on and cry it out—I sha’n’t mind,” he urged as he speeded the car along a +country road.</p> + +<p>Sheila smiled faintly. “Thank you—can’t. Just feel bruised and banged all +over—feel as if I needed a plunge in that old pool of Bethesda.”</p> + +<p>They spun on in silence for a few miles more before Sheila spoke again. “I +learned one wonderful thing from Pancho—something I never felt sure of +before.”</p> + +<p>“What was that?”</p> + +<p>“Sorry—can’t tell. It’s the sort of thing you tell only the man you +marry, after you’ve discovered he’s the only man you ever could have +married.”</p> + +<p>Peter speeded the car ahead and smiled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> quietly into the gathering +darkness. Fortunately he was not an impatient man.</p> + +<p>There is one point concerning the atom that Hennessy and Doctor Fuller +still wrangle over, neither of them having the slightest conception of the +other’s point of view.</p> + +<p>“That was a case of good nursing and milk,” the old doctor persists.</p> + +<p>While Hennessy beats the air with his fists and shouts: “Nothing of the +sort! ’Twas egg-shells that done it.”</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="Chapter_IV" id="Chapter_IV"></a>Chapter IV</h2> +<h3>FOR THE HONOR OF THE SAN</h3> + +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">Peter Brooks</span> paced the sanitarium grounds like a man possessed. Hands +thrust deep into pockets, teeth hard clenched, head bare, the raw October +wind ruffling his heavy crop of hair like a cock’s comb. So suggestive was +the resemblance that Hennessy, watching him from the willow stump by the +pond, was forced to remark to Brian Boru, the gray swan, that Mr. Peter +looked like a young rooster, after growing his spurs, looking for his +first fight.</p> + +<p>“Aye, an’ for one I’m wishin’ he’d be findin’ it,” continued Hennessy. +“He’s bided peaceful an’ patient till there is no virtue left in him. Ye +can make believe women be civilized if ye like, but I’m knowin’ that a +woman’s sure to go to the man that fights the hardest to get her, same as +it was in the savage day o’ the world. An’ there’s nothing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> that sets a +man right quicker with himself than a good fight, tongues or fists.”</p> + +<p>At that moment Peter would have gladly chosen either or both if fate could +only have furnished him with a legitimate combatant. But a man cannot +fight gossipy old ladies or jealous, petty-minded nurses, or a doctor whom +he has never met and whose transgressions he cannot swear to. And yet +Peter wanted to double up his fists and pitch into the whole community; he +felt himself all brute and yearned for wholesale slaughter.</p> + +<p>Peter had come to the sanitarium in the beginning to be cured of a +temporal malady, only to rise from his bed stricken with an eternal one. +He had fallen desperately in love with Sheila O’Leary as only a man of +Peter’s sort can fall in love, once and for all time. Moreover, he +believed in her as a man believes in the best and purest that is likely to +come into his life. On the day of his convalescing, when she had been +transferred from his case to another, he had sworn that he would not stir +foot from the old San until he had won her. He had kept his word for four +months. He would have been content to keep it for four more—or for four +years, for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> that matter—had everything not turned suddenly topsy-turvy +and sent his world of hopes crashing down about him.</p> + +<p>For four months he had shared as much of Sheila’s life and work as she +would allow. He had let himself drift into the rôle of a comfortable and +sympathetic companion whenever her hours for recreation gave him a chance. +His love had grown as his admiration and understanding of her had grown, +until she had come to seem as necessary a part of his life as the air he +breathed. Then he had been able to smile whimsically at those gossipy +tales. What if she had been suspended and sent away from the sanitarium? +What if she had broken through some of the tight-laced rules with which +all institutions of this kind hedge in their nurses? Sheila’s proclivity +for breaking rules was a byword among the many who loved her, and the head +of the institution, the superintendent of nurses, the entire staff of +doctors, down to Hennessy, the keeper of the walks and swans, only smiled +and closed their eyes to all of Sheila’s backsliding. For hadn’t they all +believed in her? And hadn’t they sent for her to come back to them again? +And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> which one of them had ever allowed a word of scandal to pass his +lips? So Peter smiled, too.</p> + +<p>In those months he had come to read Sheila—so he thought—like an open +book. He had learned by heart all her moods, the good and the bad, the +sweet and the bitter. He knew she could be as divinely tender and +compassionate as a celestial mother; he also knew that she could be as +barren of sympathy and as relentless as fate itself. She could pour forth +her whole throbbing soul, impulsive, warm, and radiant, as a true Celt, +yet she could be as impersonal, terse, and cryptic as a marconigram. He +loved these very extremes in her, her unmitigated hatred for the things +she hated, and her unfailing love for the things she loved. She made no +pretense or boast for herself; she was what she was for all the world to +see. And Peter had found her the stanchest, sweetest, most vital—albeit +the most stubborn—piece of womanhood he had ever known. Her very nickname +of “Leerie” was her open letter of introduction to every one; her smile +and the wonder-light in her eyes were her best credentials. Small wonder +it was that her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> patients watched for her to come and that Peter felt he +could snap his fingers at the scandalmongers.</p> + +<p>But Peter wasn’t snapping them now—or smiling. His fists were doubled +tight in his pockets, and he clenched his teeth harder as he paced the +walk from pond to rest-house. How the accursed tongues of the gossips rang +in his head! “Rather odd the sanitarium should have sent for him, wasn’t +it? Don’t you know he was the young surgeon who was mixed up in that +affair with that popular nurse?”... “Oh yes, they hushed it up and sent +them both away.”... “Nothing definite was ever explained, but they were +always together, just as they are now, and you can’t get smoke without +some burning.”... “Yes, Doctor Brainard and Miss O’Leary. Didn’t you ever +hear about what happened three years ago?”</p> + +<p>Peter’s stride seemed to measure forth the length of each offending +tongue, and when he reached the end of his beaten track he swung about as +if to meet and silence them all, for all time. But instead he came face to +face with the two who had caused them to wag. So absorbed were the surgeon +and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> nurse in what they had to say to each other that they brushed by +Peter without seeing him. He might have been one of the rustic posts of +the rest-house or the pine-tree growing close by. As they passed, Peter +scanned narrowly the half-averted face of the girl he loved and found it +pitifully changed in those few days. The luminous light had gone from her +eyes; her lips no longer curved to the gracious, demure smile Peter had +always called “cloistered.” They were set to grim determination, as if the +girl had gripped fast to a purpose and no amount of shaking or persuasion +would induce her to let go. Her eyes were circled and anxious. Peter +groaned unconsciously at his glimpse of her, while Hennessy from his +vantage-point on the stump shook a vengeful fist at the retreating back of +the surgeon.</p> + +<p>“A million curses on him!” muttered Hennessy, his lips tight shirred. +“Sure, the lass has the look of a soul possessed.” The next instant his +fist was descending not over-mercifully on Peter’s back. “First I’m +cursin’ him an’ then I’m cursin’ ye. For the love o’ Saint Patrick, are ye +goin’ to stand round like a blitherin’ fool an’ see that rascal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> of a +docthor do harm again to our lass? I’ll come mortial close to wringin’ +your neck if ye do.”</p> + +<p>Peter glared at his erstwhile friend and fellow-philosopher. “You’re the +fool, Hennessy. What under heaven can I do? What could any man do in my +place?”</p> + +<p>“Fight for her. Can’t you see the man has her possessed? What an’ how +Hennessy hasn’t the wits to make out, but ye have. Search out her throuble +same as she searched out yours, an’ make her whole an’ sweet an’ shinin’ +again.” Hennessy laid two gnarled, brown hands on Peter’s shoulder while +he peered up at him with eyes full of appeal. “Ye’ve heard naught to shake +your faith in the lass? Ye believe in her—aye?”</p> + +<p>“Good God! man, of course I believe in her! I’d believe in her if all the +tongues in the world wagged till doomsday. But what else can I do? Hang +around this old hotbed of gossip and listen and listen, powerless to cram +the truth down their throats because I don’t know it?” Peter shot out a +sudden hand and gripped Hennessy’s. “For the love of your blessed Saint +Patrick, stand up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> like a man there, Hennessy, and tell me what was the +truth?”</p> + +<p>For a moment Hennessy’s eyes shifted; he whistled his breath in and out in +staccato jerks; then his gaze came back to Peter and he eyed him steadily. +“Son, I’m knowin’ no more than when I first saw ye.”</p> + +<p>“You believe in her?”</p> + +<p>Hennessy pulled his hand free and shook his fist in Peter’s face. “Bad +scran to ye for thinkin’ aught else. ’Tis God’s truth I’m tellin’ ye, Mr. +Peter. I’m knowin’ no more than them blitherin’ tongues say, but I’d pray +our lass into heaven wi’ my dyin’ breath if I could.”</p> + +<p>Peter smiled. “You’d be doing better to pray her out of this miserable +little purgatory right here. If she belonged to me, Hennessy—”</p> + +<p>“I wish to God she did, sir! But that’s what ye can fight for—make her +belong.”</p> + +<p>“Easier said than done. Since Doctor Brainard came I can’t get her to see +me. Read that!” Peter pulled out of his pocket a tiny folded note and +handed it to the swan-keeper. It was deciphered with much labor and read +with troubled seriousness.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Dear Mr. Brooks:</p> + +<p>Thank you for the flowers, and the candy, and the many offers of the +car, but I haven’t time to enjoy any of these things just now. So +please don’t send me any more, or write, or try to see me. I think it +would be better for every one, and far happier in the end for you, if +you would go back to your work as soon as possible.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 8em;">Faithfully yours,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 12em;"><span class="smcap">Sheila O’Leary</span>.</span></p></div> + +<p>Hennessy snorted. “So that’s what she thinks, is it? Well, don’t ye do it. +’Twas betther advice I gave ye myself; hold fast here an’ fight for her. +Mind that!” And with a farewell pull of his forelock Hennessy left him.</p> + +<p>Peter watched him for an instant, then with a new purpose full-born in his +mind he turned and walked swiftly back to the sanitarium. He knew why the +management had sent for Brainard to come back to the San. The head surgeon +had been taken with typhoid; the wards were full of his special operative +cases, and Brainard, who had trained under him, was the most skilful man +available to take his place. But why had they put Sheila O’Leary on as his +surgical nurse? Why had they done this thing that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> was bound to revive the +old scandal and set tongues wagging anew? Peter knew that upon the answer +to this depended his decision. Would he take Sheila’s advice and go, or +Hennessy’s advice and fight?</p> + +<p>He went directly to the office of the superintendent of nurses, and, +finding the door well ajar, he entered without knocking. Miss Maxwell was +seated at her desk. Across the desk, with clasped hands, cheeks aflame, +and lips compressed into a look of even greater determination than Peter +had seen there a few minutes before, leaned Sheila O’Leary.</p> + +<p>Peter colored at his unintentional intrusion. “Excuse me,” he stammered. +“Not hearing voices, I thought you were alone. I’ll come again later, Miss +Maxwell,” and he turned toward the door.</p> + +<p>Leerie’s voice called him back. “Don’t go—want you. Something I was +trying to get Miss Max to promise.”</p> + +<p>This time Miss Maxwell colored. “It’s against rules, Leerie, to talk over +hospital matters before patients, even as discreet a one as Mr. Brooks.”</p> + +<p>“I know—can’t help it—need him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> +Besides, he’s his best friend.” She +turned to Peter with a strained eagerness. “This will be news to you. +Doctor Dempsy is due here in the morning—taken suddenly—major +operation—nurse just wired. I want you and Miss Max to take him on to the +Dentons if he can stand the trip. Awfully delicate operation, and it’s +Doctor John’s crack piece of work. Will you do it?”</p> + +<p>The unexpectedness of the news and the request overwhelmed Peter’s usually +agile intelligence. He stared blankly at the girl before him. “I don’t +think I understand. If Dempsy is coming here for an operation, why should +we take him somewhere else? Why shouldn’t he be operated on here if he +wants to be?”</p> + +<p>“He thinks Doctor Jefferson is still operating. He doesn’t know—”</p> + +<p>The superintendent of nurses interrupted her. “Leerie, you’re overstepping +even your privileges. Doctor Brainard was called here to take charge +because the management had absolute confidence in his skill and knew he +was trustworthy and conscientious. I think there is nothing further that +needs to be said. Doctor Dempsy will do what every other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> patient has +done, put himself unreservedly into Doctor Brainard’s hands.”</p> + +<p>“But he mustn’t.” The crimson had died out of Sheila’s cheeks, and she +stood now pale to the very lips, her face working convulsively. “You don’t +seem to understand, and it’s hard—hard to put it into words. Doctor +Brainard is young—very young for his position and all the responsibility +that has been heaped upon him. His work ever since he came has been +terrific—eight and ten majors a day, Sundays, too. It’s been a fearful +strain, and now to make him responsible for a case like Doctor Dempsy, a +case that takes great delicacy and nerve, one that is bound to attack his +sympathy and his reputation at the same time, why—why, it isn’t fair. +Can’t you see that if he should fail, no matter how blameless he might be, +it would stick to him for the rest of his life, a blot on his work and the +San?” Sheila’s hands went out in a last appeal. “Send him to the Dentons; +they’ve had five years of experience for every year of Doctor Brainard’s. +Please, please! Oh, don’t you see?”</p> + +<p>“Why should you care so much?” The words were off Peter’s tongue before he +knew<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> it. He would have given a good deal if he could have got them back.</p> + +<p>The girl looked from him to Miss Maxwell. The question apparently +bewildered her. Then a hint of her old-time dignity and assurance +returned, coupled with her cryptic mood. “Plenty of reasons: he was Miss +Max’s chief—she always worshiped him—your best friend, a most loved and +honored man in the profession. Isn’t he? Well, this isn’t the time or the +place for a risk.”</p> + +<p>The superintendent rose and looked down at the girl. When she spoke there +was a touch of annoyance in the tone as well as sadness. “And that’s as +much—and as little—as you expect to tell us?”</p> + +<p>Sheila nodded.</p> + +<p>Miss Maxwell threw up her hands in a little gesture of helplessness. +“Leerie, Leerie, what are we going to do with you? It was this way even +three years ago.”</p> + +<p>In a flash the girl’s arms were about the superintendent’s neck, her face +buried on her shoulder; the words were barely audible to Peter, “Love me +and believe in me—as you did three years ago.” And then a choking,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> +wet-eyed, and rather disheveled figure flew past him, out of the room.</p> + +<p>Miss Maxwell sank back heavily into her chair; her face showed plainly her +battling between love for the girl, her sense of outraged discipline, and +her anxiety over the decision she must make. Peter watched her with a sort +of impersonal sympathy; the major part of his being had been plunged into +what seemed a veritable chasm of hopelessness. He tried to pull himself +together and realize that there was Dempsy to think about.</p> + +<p>“What are you going to do?” he asked, at last.</p> + +<p>“Do? You mean—about—?”</p> + +<p>Peter nodded.</p> + +<p>An almost pathetic smile crept into the superintendent’s face. “As long as +you were here, anyway, it’s rather a relief to be able to confess that I +don’t know what to do. You see, superintendents are always supposed to +have infallible judgment on all matters,” she sighed. “I have never but +once known Leerie to break a rule or ask for a special dispensation +without a reason—a good reason. But I don’t understand what lies behind +all this.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>“I do.” Peter fairly roared it forth. “She loves that man, and she’s +afraid this might ruin his career if—if anything happened. Why, it’s as +plain as these four walls and the ceiling above us. No woman pleads for a +man that way unless she loves him better than anything else on God’s +earth.”</p> + +<p>“I think you’re wrong.”</p> + +<p>“Why?” Peter strode over to the superintendent’s desk like a man after his +reprieve. “I’m not just curious. I’ve the biggest excuse in the world for +wanting to know why she has asked this. I love Sheila O’Leary. I love her +well enough to leave her to-night with the man she loves, provided he +loves her. But if he doesn’t—if he’s just playing with her, accepting her +as a sop to his vanity, as a lot of near-famous men will with a +woman—then, by thunder! I’m going to stay and fight him for her! +Understand?” And Peter’s fist pounded the desk.</p> + +<p>The superintendent smiled again. This time there was no pathos in it. “I +understand—and I’d stay. You ought to know Leerie well enough by this +time to know that she can fight for the right of anything, whether she +cares personally or not, and more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> than that, even if she has to suffer +for it herself. She’s the only woman I have ever known who had that +particular kind of heroism. If she felt Doctor Brainard needed some one to +stand up for him, I believe she could plead better if she didn’t care. And +I’ve another, a better reason for thinking she doesn’t love him. She +refused at first to be his surgical nurse. She didn’t consent until she +knew that he had made that one of the conditions of his coming here; he +stipulated that he must be allowed to bring his own anesthetist, operate +without an assistant, and choose his own operating nurse.”</p> + +<p>“And he choose her?”</p> + +<p>“She is the best we have. Not using an assistant throws a tremendous +responsibility and strain on the nurse, and Doctor Brainard naturally +wanted the most expert one he could get.”</p> + +<p>“Then there was nothing personal—”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think so. Doctor Brainard has a strong influence over Leerie, but +I believe it is only what any surgeon with distinction and power would +have. If she really cared for Doctor Brainard, she wouldn’t have said<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> +what she did when I asked her to take the appointment.”</p> + +<p>“What did she say?” Peter leaned forward eagerly and gripped the edge of +the desk.</p> + +<p>“She said she would rather be suspended for three more years than do it, +but if there was no one else, she guessed she could manage it for the +honor of the San.”</p> + +<p>“What did she mean?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, that’s just a by-phrase among those of us who have worked here a long +while and feel a certain loyalty and responsibility for the ideals of this +institution. We have tried to stand for honest, humane work as against +mere moneygrubbing and popularity.”</p> + +<p>“I see. That’s why Dempsy sent me here; that’s why he’s coming himself. +Thank you, Miss Maxwell. I hope you’re right.” Peter straightened himself +and moved toward the door.</p> + +<p>“Wait a minute, Mr. Brooks. How much do you know of what happened three +years ago?”</p> + +<p>“Just what has dripped from the wagging tongues.” Peter smiled ironically.</p> + +<p>“Suppose I tell you the truth of it. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> might help you to fight this +thing through. It certainly couldn’t hurt your love for Leerie if you +really love her.”</p> + +<p>“Nothing could,” said Peter, simply.</p> + +<p>“Doctor Brainard and Leerie were the very best of friends during the years +she was training and he was working under Doctor Jefferson. Then I thought +it was love; they were always together, and there seemed to be a strong, +deep sympathy between the two. Just about the time she graduated things +began to go awry. Doctor Brainard was on the verge of a nervous breakdown +and Leerie seemed to be laboring under some bad mental strain. Then the +nurses began to hint that Leerie had been going to his room. One night, +when she was head night nurse in the Surgical and Miss Jacobs was fourth +corridor nurse, Miss Jacobs called me up at two in the morning and told me +Leerie had been in Doctor Brainard’s room for an hour. I came at once and +found her there. She made no explanation, offered no excuses. She even +acknowledged that she had been there twice before at the same time.”</p> + +<p>“What did Brainard say?” Peter asked it through clenched teeth.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>“Nothing then. But later, when he was called before the Board, he laughed +and asked what a man could say when a nurse chose to come to his room at +two in the morning.”</p> + +<p>“The cad!” and Peter swore under his breath.</p> + +<p>“I should have believed in Leerie, anyway, but it was that laugh of Doctor +Brainard’s that made me determined to fight for her. What motive Doctor +Brainard had for not defending her I don’t know, but he acted like a scoundrel.”</p> + +<p>“But why?” Peter beat the air. “Oh, the girl must have known she couldn’t +run amuck with convention that way and not have it hurt her! Why did she do it?”</p> + +<p>The superintendent of nurses looked long and thoughtfully at him. “Do you +know, Mr. Brooks, if I happened to be the man who loved Sheila O’Leary, I +think I’d find that out as soon as I could. The answer might prove +valuable; it might solve the riddle why Sheila doesn’t want Doctor Dempsy +operated on here.”</p> + +<p>“Well, is he going to be?”</p> + +<p>“No, we’ll take him on to the Dentons if he can be moved again after he +gets here.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>But fate willed otherwise. When Doctor Dempsy arrived on the early train +there were no conflicting opinions as to his condition; it was critical, +and there would have to be an operation within twenty-four hours. Miss +Maxwell brought the news to Peter along with the doctor’s wish that his +friend should be with him as long as the powers allowed.</p> + +<p>“Does Leerie know?” asked Peter.</p> + +<p>“She was present at the consultation.”</p> + +<p>“What did she say?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing. But she looked very white and drawn. I’m afraid she hasn’t slept much.”</p> + +<p>“Good Lord! you don’t believe she really thinks Brainard will bungle!”</p> + +<p>But Miss Maxwell cut him short. “This is no time to bother with futile +suppositions. Please, Mr. Brooks! Remember that for all our sakes—Doctor +Dempsy’s most of all—this is the time to keep our nerve and think only +one way.” With a grave shake of the head she left him at the door of +Doctor Dempsy’s room.</p> + +<p>To Peter the day crept on at a snail’s pace; to Sheila it galloped. Peter +saw her just once, when, at Doctor Dempsy’s urgent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> wish, she came in for +a moment between operations, muffled to the eyes in her gown and mask.</p> + +<p>“Come here, child.” The old doctor held out a commanding hand and drew the +nurse close to the bed. “I’ve had something on my mind ever since I saw +your face this morning. Might as well say it now before I forget it.” He +smiled up gently at the great, deep-gray eyes looking down wistfully at +him. “I imagine that you two youngsters may be fretting some over +to-morrow—seven <span class="smcaplc">A.M.</span> Hey? Mean trick to saddle you with the +responsibility of an old, worn-out hulk like mine, with the chances +fifty-fifty on patching it up. What I wanted to say was that you mustn’t +take it too hard if I don’t patch. ’Pon my soul I sha’n’t mind for +myself.”</p> + +<p>A voice called from the corridor outside, “Miss O’Leary, Doctor Brainard’s +waiting.”</p> + +<p>Doctor Dempsy gave the hand inside the rubber glove a tight squeeze. +“Remember, Leerie, I know you’ll keep the little old lantern burning for +me as long as you can, and here’s good luck, whatever happens.”</p> + +<p>She went without a word. Peter had become vastly absorbed at the window +in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> watching Hennessy sweeping a gathering of leaves from the curb. When +he finally came back to his chair by the bedside he flattered himself that +his expression was beatifically cheerful and his voice perfectly steady.</p> + +<p>As the day waned a storm gathered, and by nightfall the sanitarium and the +surrounding country were in the grip of a full-fledged equinoctial. Doctor +Dempsy was put to bed early, and Peter went back to his room in the main +building to write himself into a state of temporary forgetfulness, if he +could. He had tinkered with his pen, sharpened half a dozen pencils, and +mussed up as many sheets of paper when a knock brought him to his feet. +Sheila O’Leary stood at the door. Her lips were bravely trying to smile +away the haggard lines of the face.</p> + +<p>Unconsciously Peter’s arms went out to her as he repeated that old cry of +his in the days when he was a sufferer in the Surgical, “Why—why, it’s +Leerie!” and his love seemed to pound through every syllable.</p> + +<p>For the flash of a second the eyes of the girl leaped to his in answer, +but in another flash they seemed to have traveled miles away, looking back +at him with the sadness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> of a lost angel. “Yes, it’s Leerie again—come +for help,” she announced, tersely.</p> + +<p>“All right.” Peter tried to sound matter-of-fact.</p> + +<p>“Don’t ask questions; just do it. Will you?”</p> + +<p>Peter nodded.</p> + +<p>“You said once if you had to, you could drive through any storm, snow, +hail, or rain, that you had ever seen. Yes? Then get your car and take +Doctor Brainard out to-night. Take him anywhere, and keep him going till +he’s so tired he’s ready to drop. Talk to him, tell him stories, don’t let +him talk about himself—or to-morrow. And bring him home when you think he +can sleep.”</p> + +<p>“Yes. What are you going to do?”</p> + +<p>“Sleep, I hope.” She turned to go, but came back again and laid a cold +hand in Peter’s. “Thank you. Don’t think I don’t appreciate it.”</p> + +<p>“Wait a minute. As it happens, I haven’t met Doctor Brainard, and there’s +a perfectly good chance he may not care about joy-riding in a young +hurricane—even in my company,” Peter ended ironically.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>Leerie gave a little hollow laugh. “Oh, he’ll go—don’t worry. I’ll bring +him down and introduce him. Ready in ten minutes?” And this time she was +gone.</p> + +<p>Peter knew if he lived to the ripe old age of Solomon himself he should +never forget the smallest detail of that night—Doctor Brainard’s curt, +almost surly greeting, the plunge into the car, and the start. After that +Peter felt like a mythological being piloting the elements. He headed for +a state road, and for miles, neither of them speaking, the car streaked +over what might have been the surface of the river of Lethe, or the strata +of mist lying above Niflheim, for all the feeling of reality and substance +it gave. He had the eery sensation that he might be forced to keep on and +on till the end of the world, like the Flying Dutchman. He wondered what +sin of his own or some one’s else he might be expiating. They passed no +living or mechanical thing; they had the road, the night, the storm to +themselves. They might have gone ten miles or thirty before Doctor +Brainard broke the silence.</p> + +<p>“Gad! but you can drive!”</p> + +<p>“Thank you. Like it?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>“Not exactly. But it’s better than thinking.”</p> + +<p>“Works the other way with me; this sets me thinking.” A sudden, heavier +gust sent the car skidding across the road, and Peter’s attention went to +his wheel. Righting it, he went on, “This is the second time in my life +I’ve felt something controlling me that was stronger than my own will.”</p> + +<p>“Nasty feeling. Lucky man if you’ve only felt it twice. What was it the +first time?”</p> + +<p>“Fear. That’s what brought me here.”</p> + +<p>Peter felt the eyes of the doctor studying him in the dark. “I heard about +your case. It was Leerie brought you through, too, wasn’t it?”</p> + +<p>Quick as a flash Peter turned. For the instant he forgot they were +speeding at a forbidden rate down slippery macadam in a tempest, with his +hand as the only controlling force. He almost dropped his wheel. “Why +‘<i>too</i>’? Is she pulling you through something?”</p> + +<p>He could hear a heavy intake of breath beside him. Unconsciously he knew +that his companion was no longer sitting limp with relaxed muscles. He +seemed to feel every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> nerve and fiber in the body of the surgeon growing +tense, which made his careless, inconsequential tone sound the more +strange when he finally spoke:</p> + +<p>“That’s an odd question to put to a doctor. I was referring to Leerie’s +cases. She’s pulled through hundreds of patients, you know; she’s famous +for it.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know,” answered Peter. His voice sounded just as careless, but the +hands that gripped the wheel were as taut as steel.</p> + +<p>They swept on for another half-hour, the silence broken by an occasional +yawn from the surgeon. At last Peter slowed down and looked at his watch. +“Eleven-thirty. If we turn now we’ll make the San about one. How’s that +for bedtime?”</p> + +<p>“Gad! I’m ready now,” and the doctor yawned again.</p> + +<p>Peter timed it to a nicety. It was five minutes past one as he dropped +Doctor Brainard at the Surgical, where he roomed. He was just driving off +when Miss Jacobs hurried out of the entrance.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mr. Brooks, wait a minute, please. Doctor Dempsy isn’t resting very +well, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> Miss Maxwell left word that if he called for you, you could sit +with him. We can’t get him to sleep, and he does want you.”</p> + +<p>“All right. I’ll leave the car and come back.”</p> + +<p>As Peter took his chair again by his friend’s bedside his face was set to +as strong a purpose as Sheila O’Leary’s had shown that day in the +sanitarium grounds. “Want me to talk, old man?” he asked, quietly. “Maybe +I can yarn you into forty winks. Shall I try?”</p> + +<p>“Wish you would. It’s funny how a man can go through this with a thousand +or so patients and it seems like an every-day affair, but when it’s +himself—well, there’s the rub.” And the doctor smiled a bit sheepishly at +his own ungovernable nerves.</p> + +<p>Peter gripped his hand understandingly. “I know. It’s the difference +between fiction and autobiography as far as it touches your own sense of +reality. Well, to-night shall we try fiction? Ever since they pulled me +through here, I’ve had my mind on a yarn with a sanitarium or hospital for +a background and a doctor for a hero. All this atmosphere gets into your +blood. It keeps you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> guessing until you have to spin a yarn and use up the +material.”</p> + +<p>“Anything for copy, hey?” the doctor chuckled.</p> + +<p>“That’s about it. Well, my yarn runs about this way.” With the skill of an +artist and the sympathy of a humanist—and the suppressed excitement of +one who has something at stake—Peter drew his two principal characters, +the conscientious, sensitive doctor possessed with the constant fear of +that hypothetical case he might lose some day, and the smooth, scheming +man a few years his senior who wanted to get his fellow-practitioner out +of the way and marry the girl they both loved. Peter made the girl as +adorable as a man in love might picture her.</p> + +<p>“For a sixpence I’d wager you had fallen in love yourself.” Doctor Dempsy +chuckled again. “I never before knew you to be so keen over feminine +charms.”</p> + +<p>“Just more copy,” and Peter went on with the tale. “Well, the young chap’s +horror and fear kept growing with each new case, and the other chap kept +sneering and suggesting that his nerves weren’t fit, and his hand wasn’t +steady, and he worked too slowly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> He kept it up until he got what he +wanted; the young chap bungled his operation and lost his case.”</p> + +<p>“Poor devil! I know just what kind of torment he lived through.” Doctor +Dempsy raised himself on an elbow and shook his head at Peter. “A case +like that may be fiction to you, but it’s fact to us in the profession. +You have no idea how often a youngster’s nerves fail him.”</p> + +<p>“Guess I’m getting the idea. But I need your help to finish the yarn. Of +course the hospital couldn’t bounce him for losing one case. They would +have to prove first that he wasn’t fit, wouldn’t they?”</p> + +<p>“They would have to make him out incompetent.”</p> + +<p>Peter nodded. Had there been more light in the room Doctor Dempsy might +have been startled at the unprecedented expression of cunning that had +crept into his friend’s face. “I’m not up enough in medical matters to +know what I could prove against the young chap to put him out. You’ll have +to help me. Just how could his rival oust him?”</p> + +<p>“Accuse him of drugs,” came the unhesitating answer. “That’s the most +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>plausible, and it’s what plays havoc with young surgeons quicker than +anything else. They feel their nerves going, and they take a hypodermic; +it steadies them until—it gets them. If you can make your villain +convince the staff that drugs are back of the lost case, you can get your +poor devil of a surgeon permanently disposed of.”</p> + +<p>Peter let out a long-drawn breath. “Thank you, Doc. You’ve helped me +out—considerably.”</p> + +<p>It does not in the least matter how Peter finished the tale. Before the +inevitable conclusion Doctor Dempsy dropped off to sleep, and no one but +Peter himself heard the final, “And they married and lived happy ever +after. By Jupiter they did!”</p> + +<p>He slipped softly out of the room and stood a moment in the corridor, +wondering what he would do next. Sleep seemed unnecessary just then, as +well as undesirable. And as he stood there, innocent of all intention of +eavesdropping, he had that rare experience of hearing history repeat +itself. From around the bend of the corridor, out of sight, came the low +but distinct whisper of the night nurse’s voice at the house ’phone.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>“Miss Maxwell, Miss Maxwell, can you hear me? This is Miss Jacobs. Leerie +went to Doctor Brainard’s room a half-hour ago. She’s still there.... All +right.” And then the soft click of the receiver dropping into place.</p> + +<p>Peter stiffened; his hands clenched. His first impulse was to creep ’round +and quietly choke the tattle-tale breath out of Miss Jacobs. He knew how +the little green-eyed nurse was gloating over this second incrimination of +Leerie. But there was something more compelling to do first, something +that could not wait. He slipped ’round through the supply-room and down +the back stairs. He reached the first floor of the Surgical just as the +superintendent of nurses appeared in the entrance.</p> + +<p>“You!” demanded Miss Maxwell.</p> + +<p>“No one else,” agreed Peter. “Suppose we go up together.”</p> + +<p>Peter could have almost laughed at the look of dumfounded amazement on the +superintendent’s face. “You mean—Why, that’s impossible! It isn’t your +place—”</p> + +<p>Peter cut her short. “Oh yes, it is. Remember the advice you gave me a few +hours<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> ago. I’m here to find out what’s back of it all, and no one is +going to stop me.” His jaws snapped with an ominous finality.</p> + +<p>Doctor Brainard opened to their knock, but he held the door so that barely +a corner of the room was visible, and he blocked the entrance.</p> + +<p>“Open it wider!” commanded Peter. “We’ve come to stay a few minutes and +ask Miss O’Leary a few questions,” and he thrust the surgeon quickly aside +and flung wide the door.</p> + +<p>Sheila was sitting by a reading-lamp, an open book on her lap. She looked +as Peter had seen her in the early evening, only back of the tiredness and +pallor was a strange look of peace. To Peter she seemed a crucified saint +who had suddenly discovered that nail wounds were harmless. She smiled +faintly at them both. “I’m sorry it’s happened again, Miss Maxwell. If +you’ll just go away and try to forget about it until after the morning, +I’ll send in my resignation and leave as soon as you can fill my place. +And can’t we do it this time without any Board meeting? I’ll promise never +to come back.”</p> + +<p>“Then there are going to be no explanations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> this time—either?” There was +pleading in the superintendent’s voice, as well as infinite sadness.</p> + +<p>The girl shook her head. “There’s nothing to explain. I’m just here.” She +folded her hands quietly on her lap. “Won’t you please go?”</p> + +<p>“No, we won’t!” Peter thundered it forth. Then he turned to the surgeon, +and there was no pleading in his voice. “You cur! you cad! What have you +got to say?”</p> + +<p>Doctor Brainard jumped as if Peter had struck him; for the instant he +seemed to find speech difficult. “Why—why, what do you mean? How dare +you—”</p> + +<p>“I dare you,” and Peter shot out each word with the directness of a +hand-grenade, “I dare you to stand up like a man and tell why Miss O’Leary +came here to-night. You sneaked behind her silence three years ago; don’t +be a cursed coward and do it again.”</p> + +<p>The surgeon laughed a dry, unpleasant laugh. “It’s easy to call another +man names—but it doesn’t mean anything. And what right have you to ask me +to betray Miss O’Leary’s silence?”</p> + +<p>“Betray!” Peter fairly howled back the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> word at him. “Take off your coat. +Take it off, or I’ll rip it off. Now roll up your sleeves—no, your left. +There, by Jupiter! Look, Miss Maxwell!”</p> + +<p>Peter’s demand was unnecessary. The eyes of the superintendent were +already fixed on the manifold tiny blue discolorations in the surgeon’s +bare arm. “Cocaine.” She almost whispered it under her breath, and then +louder, “How long?”</p> + +<p>“Four years, about.” The surgeon’s voice was quite toneless; he seemed to +shrink and grow old while they watched him.</p> + +<p>Miss Maxwell looked across at the girl, who was leaning forward, her face +in her hands, crying softly. Her eyes were bitterly accusing, and there +was abundant scorn in her voice when she spoke again to the surgeon. “So +Leerie has been shielding you all along and helping you to fight it. How +did she know?”</p> + +<p>“I told her. I thought if some one with a courage and trust like hers knew +about it it might pull me together. God! I wish I’d killed myself three +years ago.”</p> + +<p>“Pity you didn’t!” There was no mercy in Peter’s voice. “But I suppose she +wouldn’t<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> let you; I suppose she held you together then as she’s trying to +now. She’s trying to save you for to-morrow—seven <span class="smcaplc">A.M.</span>—and all the +to-morrows coming after. I—I think I’m beginning to understand.” His arms +dropped dejectedly to his sides. For Peter there could be but one meaning +to Sheila’s sacrifice and struggle.</p> + +<p>But Miss Maxwell was holding fast to her cross-examination. “And I suppose +you promised Leerie three years ago if she’d keep silent you would fight +it through and break the habit. And that’s why you’ve let no one but +Leerie and Miss Jacobs in the operating-room, so no one else would guess. +Did Miss Jacobs find out three years ago?”</p> + +<p>Doctor Brainard nodded.</p> + +<p>Words failed the superintendent, but her expression boded ill for the +little green-eyed nurse. “Well,” she said, at length, “there’s only one +thing that matters right now—are you or are you not going to be in a fit +condition to operate to-morrow?”</p> + +<p>It was Leerie who answered. She was out of her chair at a bound and beside +the surgeon, her hand on his arm. “He’s going to operate; he’s got to. +There isn’t another<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> skilled hand like his nearer than the Dentons, so +he’s got to bring Doctor Dempsy through. Please, Miss Maxwell, leave him +to me. I can manage. He’s got four hours to sleep, and then I’ll let him +have enough cocaine to steady him. Won’t you trust me?”</p> + +<p>“It’s about the only way now.”</p> + +<p>Peter left unnoticed. He realized, as he had realized in the sanitarium +grounds that afternoon, that he counted about as much in this crisis as a +part of the inanimate surroundings. Miss Maxwell joined him a moment +later, looking outrageously relieved. She flashed Peter an apologetic +smile.</p> + +<p>“I know it’s shameless of me to look glad when you look so miserable. But +I can’t help feeling that we are going to win. Leerie deserves it after +what she’s suffered for him. That man couldn’t fail her, and her trust is +bound to make good. Don’t you see?”</p> + +<p>Peter’s shoulders gave an unconvincing shrug. “I hope so. He ought to—if +he’s half-way a man.” He looked at his watch. “Almost morning now. Guess +I’ll pack my things and be ready to start as soon as I know Dempsy’s all +right.”</p> + +<p>Miss Maxwell held him back for an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> instant. “I know you’re thinking that +all’s wrong with the world, but I know all’s right. Go and pack if you +must, but please stay in your room until I send you word. Promise?”</p> + +<p>And not caring, Peter promised.</p> + +<p>From seven o’clock on Peter paced the room among his packed luggage and +counted the minutes. He wondered how long his patience would last and when +his misery would stop growing. The burden of both had become unbearable. +At eight-thirty a sharp knock sounded and he sprang to the door. On the +threshold stood a nurse in surgical wrappings, with eyes that shone like a +whole firmament of stars and a mouth that curved to the gentle demureness +of a nun. Peter stood and stared at this unexpected apparition of the old +Leerie.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said the apparition, smiling radiantly as of old, “I’m a messenger +of glad tidings. Won’t you ask me to come in?”</p> + +<p>Peter flushed and drew her to a chair.</p> + +<p>“Oh, it was a wonderful operation. It seemed almost like performing a +miracle, and that blessed old doctor is coming out of the ether like a +baby.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>“Maybe it was a miracle—the miracle of a woman’s trust.”</p> + +<p>A look of rare tenderness swept into the girl’s face. “Thank you. I wonder +if you know how often you say the kindest and most comforting thing.” Then +she sobered. “He’s made a brave fight, and it wasn’t easy to pull himself +together, in the face of what he knew you were all thinking of him, and do +such a tremendous piece of work. I want you to understand. He’s a +brilliant surgeon; it didn’t seem right that he should be lost to himself +and the profession. And the best of it is, he isn’t going to be. The San +is going to stand by him; every doctor on the staff is willing to help +him. As soon as Doctor Jefferson is back, Doctor Brainard is to stop work +until—until he’s fit again. Isn’t that splendid! Oh, I could sing! I keep +saying over those great Hebrew words of comfort, ‘Weeping may tarry +through the night, but joy cometh in the morning.’”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Peter, dully. “I’m glad joy has come for you. May I wish you +and Doctor Brainard all success and happiness?”</p> + +<p>Sheila’s eyes looked into Peter’s with a sudden intensity. “You may—but +not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> together. Have you actually been thinking that I loved Doctor +Brainard?” A hint of the old bitterness crept into her voice. “I can pity +a man like that, but love him—love weakness and selfishness—and the +willingness to betray a woman’s honor—no! Three years ago he killed +whatever personal feeling I might have had for him, and he made me hate +all men.”</p> + +<p>“And you’re still hating them?” Peter held fast to his rising hopes while +he hung eagerly on her answer.</p> + +<p>“No. Ever since a fine, strong, unselfish man came into my life it has set +me loving all mankind so scandalously that I’m afraid the only way to make +me respectable is—for some man to marry me.” Leerie’s arms went out to +Peter in complete surrender. “Oh, Peter—Peter—it’s morning!”</p> + +<p>But it was almost noon before Peter began to think intelligently again, +and then he remembered something, something that ought to be done. “I +think,” he said, “I think we ought to go out and tell Hennessy and the +swans; we sort of owe it to them.”</p> + +<p>And it all ended even as Peter had prophesied in his yarn by Doctor +Dempsy’s bedside.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="Chapter_V" id="Chapter_V"></a>Chapter V</h2> +<h3>THE LAST OF THE SURGICAL</h3> + +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">Things</span> have a way of beginning casually, so casually that you think they +are bound to spin themselves out into airy nothings. The first inkling you +have to the contrary is that headlong plunge into one of the big moments +of your life, perhaps the biggest. But you never cease to wonder at the +innocent, inconsequential way it began. These are the moments when you can +picture Fate, sitting like an omnipotent operator before some giant +switchboard, playing with signals and the like. I dare say he grins like a +mischievous little boy who delights in turning things topsy-turvy whenever +he has a chance.</p> + +<p>Fate had been busy at this for some time when the sanitarium, quite +oblivious of any signal connection, set itself to the glorious business of +getting Sheila O’Leary married.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> Grief, despair, disappointment came often +to the San, death not infrequently, but happiness rarely, and there had +never before been such a joyous, personal happiness as this one. Small +wonder that the San should gather it close to its heart and gloat over it! +Was not Sheila one of its very own, born under its portals, trained in its +school, placed above all its nurses, and loved beyond all else? And Peter +Brooks. Had not the San given him his life and Sheila? It certainly was a +time for rejoicing. As Hennessy had voiced it:</p> + +<p>“Sure, half the weddin’s ye go to ye sit miserable, thinkin’ the man isn’t +good enough for the lass, or the lass is no mate for the man. But, glory +be to Pether! here’s a weddin’ at last that God Almighty might be cryin’ +the banns for.”</p> + +<p>They were to be married within the month. Every one was agreed to this, +from the superintendent down to Flanders, the bus-driver—yes, and even +the lovers themselves. The San forgot its aches and sorrows in the +excitement of planning an early summer wedding.</p> + +<p>“We’ll make the chapel look lovely,” chirped the Reverend Mrs. Grumble, +clasping and unclasping her hands in a fidget of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> anticipation. “There’ll +be enough roses and madonna lilies in the gardens to bank every pew and +make an arch over the chancel.”</p> + +<p>“Well, if Leerie’s married in the chapel, half of us can’t get in.” And +Madam Courot shook her head in emphatic disapproval. “She’d better take +the Congregational church. That’s the only place large enough to hold +everybody who will want to come.”</p> + +<p>A mutinous murmur rose and circled the patients on the veranda. Not +married at the San! It was unthinkable. So this point and the final date +Sheila settled for them.</p> + +<p>“We’ll have the wedding in the gardens, save all the fuss and waste of +picking the flowers, be ever so much prettier, and everybody and his +neighbor can come.”</p> + +<p>When Hennessy heard of it he shirred his mouth into a pucker and whistled +ecstatically. “’Tis like her, just! Married out-o’-doors wi’ the growin’ +things to stand up wi’ her and the blessed sun on her head. Faith, +Hennessy will have to be scrubbin’ up the swans an’ puttin’ white satin +bows round their necks.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>Sheila chose the hour before sunset on an early day of June, and the San +speedily set itself to the task of praying off the rain and arranging the +delightful details of attendants, refreshments, music, and all the other +non-essentials of a successful wedding. Miss Maxwell, the superintendent +of nurses, took the trousseau in hand and portioned out piles of napery +and underwear to the eager hands of the nurses to embroider. The whole +sanitarium was suddenly metamorphosed into a Dorcas Society; patients +forgot to be querulous, and refused extra rubbings and all unnecessary +tending, that more stitches might be taken in the twenty-four hours of the +hospital day. A great rivalry sprang up between the day and night nurses +as to which group would finish the most, and old Mr. Crotchets, the +cynical bachelor with liver complaint and a supposedly atrophied heart, +offered to the winning shift the biggest box of candy New York could put +up.</p> + +<p>Through the first days of her happiness Sheila walked like a lambent being +of another world, whose radiance was almost blinding. Those who had known +her best, who had felt her warmth and beauty in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> spite of that bitterness +which had been her shield against the hurt she had battled with so long, +looked upon her now with unfathomable wonder. And Peter, who had worshiped +her from the moment she had taken his hand and led him back to the ways of +health, watched her as the men of olden times must have watched the +goddesses that occasionally graced their earth.</p> + +<p>“Beloved, you’re almost too wonderful for an every-day, Sunday-edition +newspaper-man like me,” Peter whispered to her in the hush of one +twilight, as they sat together in the rest-house, watching Hennessy feed +the swans.</p> + +<p>“Every woman is, when the miracle of her life has been wrought for her. +Man of mine,” and Sheila reached out to Peter’s ever waiting arms, +“wouldn’t God be niggardly not to let me seem beautiful to you now?”</p> + +<p>Peter laughed softly. “If you’re beautiful now, what will you be when—”</p> + +<p>Sheila hushed him. “Listen, Peter, our happiness frightens me, it’s so +tremendous for just two people—almost more than our share of life. I know +I seem foolish, but long ago I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> made up my mind I should have to do +without love and all that goes with it, and now that it has come—sorrow, +death, never frightened me, but this does.”</p> + +<p>“Glad I have the courage for two, then. Look here, Leerie, the more +happiness we have the more we can spill over into other lives and the +brighter you can burn your lamp for the ones in the dark. This old world +needs all the happiness it can get now. So?”</p> + +<p>Sheila smiled, satisfied. “You always understand. If I ever write out a +prescription for love, I shall make understanding one-third of the dose. +Let’s go into partnership, Brooks and O’Leary, Distillers and Dispensers +of Happiness.”</p> + +<p>“All right, but the firm’s wrong. It’s going to be Brooks and Brooks,” and +Peter kissed her.</p> + +<p>“There is one thing,” and Sheila gently disentangled herself. “There are +days and days before the wedding, and if everybody thinks I am going to do +nothing until then, everybody is very much mistaken. I’m going in this +minute to sign up for my last case in the Surgical.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>It must have been just at this moment that Fate turned on an arbitrary +signal-light and changed a switch. I should like to think that back of his +grin lurked a tiny shadow of contrition.</p> + +<p>“And what am I going to do?” Peter called dolefully after her.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t know. You might write an article on the dangers and +uncertainties of marrying any woman in a profession.” And she blew him a +farewell kiss.</p> + +<p>The train from the city, that night, brought a handful of patients, and +one of these wore the uniform and insignia of a lieutenant of the +Engineers. His mother came with him. She had been an old patient, and +because of extraordinary circumstances—I use the government term—she had +obtained his discharge from a military hospital and had brought him to the +San to mend.</p> + +<p>“The wounds are slow in closing, and there’s some nervous trouble,” Miss +Maxwell explained to Sheila. “The boy’s face is rather tragic. Will you +take the case?”</p> + +<p>She accepted with her usual curt nod and a hasty departure for her +uniform. A half-hour later she was back in the Surgical, her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> fear as well +as her happiness forgotten in the call of another human being in distress. +The superintendent of nurses was right: the boy’s face was tragic, and a +frail little mother hovered over him as if she would breathe into his +lungs the last breath from her own. She looked up wistfully, a little +fearsomely, as Sheila entered; then a smile of thanksgiving swept her face +like a flash of sunlight.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m so glad! I remember you well. I hoped—but it hardly seemed +possible—I didn’t dare really to expect it. When I was here before, you +were always so needed, and my boy—of course there is nothing +serious—only—” and the shaking voice ended as incoherently as it had +begun.</p> + +<p>The nurse took the withered hands held out to her in her young, warm ones. +In an instant she saw all that the little mother had been through—the +renunciation months before when she had given her boy up to his country; +the long, weary weeks of learning to do without him; the schooling it had +taken to grow patient, waiting for the letters that came sparingly or not +at all; and at last the news that he was at the front, under fire, when +the papers published all the news there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> was to be told. Sheila saw it +all, even to her blind, frantic groping for the God she had only half +known and into whose hands she had never wholly given the keeping of her +loved ones. And after that the cable and the waiting for what was left of +her boy to come home to her. As she looked down at her, Sheila had the +strange feeling that this frail little mother was dividing the care of her +boy between God and herself, and she smiled unconsciously at this new +partnership.</p> + +<p>Gently she laid her hand on the lean, brown one resting on the coverlet; +the boy opened his eyes. “It’s going to be fine to have a soldier for a +patient; I expect you know how to obey orders. You are our first, and +we’re going to make your getting well just the happiest time in all your +life, the little mother and I.”</p> + +<p>The boy made no response. He looked at his mother as if he understood, and +then with a groan of utter misery he turned away his head and closed his +eyes again. “Ah-h-h!” thought Sheila, and a little later she drew the +mother into the corridor beyond earshot.</p> + +<p>“There’s something ailing him besides wounds. What is it?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>“Clarisse.” The promptness of the answer brought considerable relief to +the nurse. It was easy to deal with the things one knew; it was the hidden +things, tucked away in the corners of the subconscious mind or the +super-sensitive soul, that never saw the light of open confession, that +were the baffling obstacles to nursing. Sheila never dreaded what she +knew.</p> + +<p>“Well, what’s the matter with Clarisse?” she asked, cheerfully.</p> + +<p>The little mother hesitated. Evidently it was hard to put it into words. +“They’re engaged, she and Phil, and Phil doesn’t want to see her, shrinks +from the very thought of it. That’s what’s keeping him from getting +better, I think. She’s very young and oh, so pretty. They were both young +when Phil went away—but Phil—” She stopped and passed a fluttering hand +across her forehead; her lips quivered the barest bit. “Phil has come back +so old. That’s what war does for our boys; in just a few months it turns +them into old men, the serious ones—and their eyes are older than any +living person’s I ever saw.”</p> + +<p>“And Clarisse is still young. I think I understand.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>“That’s why I brought him here. In the city there would have been no +reason for her not coming to the hospital, but she couldn’t come here +unless we sent for her—could she?” Again the fluttering hand groped as if +to untangle the complexity of thoughts and feelings in the poor confused +head. “I write her letters. I make them just as pleasant as I can. I don’t +want to hurt her; she’s so young.”</p> + +<p>Sheila nodded. “Does he love her?” That was the most important, for to +Sheila love was the key that could spring the lock of every barrier.</p> + +<p>“He did, and I think she loves him—I think—”</p> + +<p>Sheila went back to her patient and began the welding of a comradeship +that only such a woman can weld when her heart is full with love for +another man. Day by day she made him talk more. He told her of his +soldiering; apparently everything that had happened before held little or +no place in his scheme of life, and he told it as simply and directly as +if he had been a child. He made her see the months of training in camp, +when he grew to know his company and feel for the first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> time what the +brotherhood of arms meant. He told of the excitement of departure, the +spiritual thrill of marching forth to war with the heart of a crusader in +every boy’s breast. His eyes shone when he spoke of their renunciation, of +the glory of putting behind them home and love until the world should be +made clean again and fit for happiness.</p> + +<p>Sheila winced at this, but the boy did not notice; he was too absorbed in +the things he had to tell.</p> + +<p>He told of the days of waiting in France, with the battle-front before +them like a mammoth drop-curtain, screening the biggest drama their lives +would ever know. “There we were, marking time with the big guns, wondering +if our turn would come next. That was a glorious feeling, worth all that +came afterward—when the curtain went up for us.”</p> + +<p>He raised himself on an elbow and looked into Sheila’s cool, gray eyes +with eyes that burned of battle. “God! I can’t tell you about it. There +have been millions of war books written by men who have seen more than I +have and who have the trick of words—and you’ve probably read them; you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> +know. Only reading isn’t seeing it; it isn’t <i>living it</i>.” He turned +quickly, shooting out a hand and gripping hers hard. “Tell me; you’ve seen +all sorts of operations—horrible ones, where they take out great pieces +of malignant stuff that is eating the life out of a man. You’ve seen +that?”</p> + +<p>The nurse nodded.</p> + +<p>“Did you forget it afterward, when the body was clean and whole again? +Could you forget the thing that had been there? For that’s war. That’s +what we’re fighting, the thing that’s eating into the heart of a decent, +sound world, and since I’ve seen the horror of it I can’t forget. I can’t +see the healing—yet.”</p> + +<p>“You will. Not at first, perhaps, but when you’re stronger. That is one of +God’s blessed plans: He made beauty to be immortal and ugliness to die and +be forgotten. And even the scars where ugliness was time whitens and +obliterates. Give time its chance.”</p> + +<p>It was the next day that the boy spoke of Clarisse. “Will time make them +all right, too? Leerie,” he had picked up the nickname from the other +nurses and appropriated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> it with all the ardent affection of worshiping +youth, “we’re miles—ages—apart. Can anything under God’s canopy bring us +together, I wonder?”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps.” Sheila smiled her old inscrutable smile. “Tell me more.”</p> + +<p>And so he told her of the girl who was so young, and oh, so pretty. It had +all seemed right before he had gone to camp; it was the great love for +him, something that had made his going seem the worthier. But at camp the +distance between them had begun to widen, her letters had failed to bridge +it, and through those letters he had discovered a new angle of her, an +angle so acute that it had cut straight to the heart and destroyed all the +love that had been there. At least that was what he thought.</p> + +<p>“I knew she was young, of course, not much more than a child, and I knew +she loved fun and good times, and all that, but—Why, she’d write about +week-end parties, and how becoming her bathing-suit was, and what Tommy +Flint said about her fox-trotting. Lord!” He writhed under the coverlet +and ground his nails into his palms. “We marched through places where +there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> wasn’t a shred of anything left for anybody. We saw old women +hanging on to broken platters and empty bird-cages because it was all they +had left—home, children, everything gone. And on top of that would come a +letter telling how much she’d spent on an evening gown, and how Bob Wylie +took them out to Riverdale and blew in a hundred and twenty dollars on the +day’s trip. A hundred and twenty dollars! That would have bought a young +ocean of milk over there for the refugee kids I saw starving.”</p> + +<p>He jerked himself up suddenly and sat huddled over, his eyes kindling with +a vision of purging the world. Sheila knew it was useless to stop him, so +she propped him up with pillows and let him go on.</p> + +<p>“And that wasn’t all. Between the lulls in the fighting they moved us +along to a quiet sector, to freshen up, where we were so close to the +German side that we could look into one of their captured villages. There +we could see the French girls they’d carried off going out to work, saw +them corralled at night like—” He broke off, hesitated, then went +doggedly on. “With field-glasses we could see them plainly, the loads<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> +they had to lift and carry, the beatings they got, the look in their +faces. Their shoulders were crooked, their backs bent from the long +slaving. They were wraiths, most of them—and some with babies at their +breasts. After I got back from seeing that, I found another letter from +Clarisse. She said the girls just couldn’t buckle down to much Red Cross +work; it was so hard to do anything much in summer. They’d no sooner get +started than some one would say tennis or a swim. <i>And I saw women dying +over there—and bearing Boche babies!</i>”</p> + +<p>All the agony of soul that youth can compass was poured forth in those +last words. The boy leaned back on his pillows, weary unto death with the +hopelessness of it all. So Sheila let him lie for a while before she +answered him.</p> + +<p>“Do the boys want their girls to know the full horror of it all? I thought +that was one of the things you were fighting for, to keep as much of it +away from them as you could.”</p> + +<p>The boy raised a hand in protest, but Sheila silenced him. “Wait a minute; +it’s my turn to talk now. I know what’s in your mind. You think that +Clarisse—and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> girls like her—are showing unforgivable callousness +and flippancy in the face of this world tragedy. Instead of becoming women +as you have become men, they stay silly, unthinking, irresponsible +creatures who dance and play and laugh while you fight and die. The +contrast is too colossal; it all seems past remedy. Isn’t that so? Well, +there’s another side, a side you haven’t thought of. The girls are giving +you up. The little they know of life, as it is now, looks very +overwhelming to them. Perhaps it frightens them. And what do frightened +children do in the dark?”</p> + +<p>The boy did not try to answer; he waited, tensely eager.</p> + +<p>“Why, they sing; they laugh little short-breathed laughs; they tell +stories to themselves of nonsensical things to reassure them. All the time +they are trying not to think of what terrors the dark may hold; they are +trying not to cry out for some one to come and sit with them. Some of our +girls are doing a tremendous work. They meet trains at all hours of the +day or night and feed the boys before they sail; they wait all day in the +canteens until they’re ready to drop; they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> put in a lot more time, making +comfort-kits, knitting, and rolling bandages, than they ever own to. And +suppose they don’t grow dreadfully serious; isn’t it better that way? The +girls are doing their bit as fast as they are learning how. It isn’t fair +of the boys to judge them too soon. It isn’t fair of you to judge your +Clarisse without giving her a chance.”</p> + +<p>“You didn’t read those letters.”</p> + +<p>“Letters! Most of us, when we write, keep back the things that really +matter and skim off the surface of our lives to tell about. There may not +be the sixteenth part of your girl in those letters.”</p> + +<p>The boy’s lips tightened stubbornly. “It wasn’t just one—it was all of +them. Anyhow, I haven’t the nerve or the heart to find out.”</p> + +<p>Again Sheila let the silence fall between them. When she spoke, her voice +was very tender. “Tell me, boy, what made you love her?”</p> + +<p>He smiled sheepishly. “Oh, I don’t know. She was always a good sport, +never got grumpy over things that happened, never got cold feet, either. +She had a way of teasing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> you to do what she wanted, would do anything to +get her way; and then she’d turn about so quickly and give you your way, +after all—just make you take it. And she’d be so awfully sweet about it, +too. And she’d always play fair, and she had a way of making you feel the +best ever. Oh, I don’t know—” The boy looked about him helplessly. “They +sound awfully foolish reasons for loving a girl.”</p> + +<p>Sheila’s face had become suddenly radiant; her eyes sparkled like +rushlights in a wind. They actually startled the boy so that he +straightened up in bed again and gripped her hand. “I say, Leerie, what is +it? I never saw you look like this before. You’re—Are you in love?”</p> + +<p>“With one of the finest men God ever made. He’s so fine that he trusted me +through a terrible bungle—believed in the real woman in me when I would +have denied it. That’s what a man’s love can do for a woman sometimes, +keep her true to the best in her.”</p> + +<p>That night, after many fluttering protests, the little mother wrote a +letter to Clarisse. It was dictated by Sheila and posted by her,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> and it +contained little information except what might have been extracted from a +non-committal railroad guide. It did mention at the last, however, that +Phil was slowly gaining.</p> + +<p>With this off her mind, Sheila went to find Peter. She had +characteristically neglected him since she had been on the case, and as +characteristically he made no protest. Instead he met her with that quick +understanding that she had claimed as one of love’s ingredients. He looked +her over well and proudly, then tapped his head significantly.</p> + +<p>“I see, there’s more to this soldier-boy case than just wounds. Want me to +run you down the boulevard while you work it out?”</p> + +<p>“Thank God for a man!” breathed Sheila, and then aloud: “No, it’s worked +out. But you might run me down, just the same.”</p> + +<p>“Feels almost like frost to-night,” said Peter as he put the car into +first. “Do you think it will hold pleasant enough for—”</p> + +<p>“For what?” Sheila’s tone sounded blank.</p> + +<p>Peter chuckled. “For the gardens and the old ladies, of course. Have you +by any chance forgotten that there’s going to be a wedding in four days?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>“Saturday, Sunday, Monday, +Tuesday—” counted Sheila. “Why, so it is!” +Then she echoed Peter’s chuckle, “Oh yes, there’s going to be a wedding, a +beautiful wedding in four days.”</p> + +<p>A strange little twinge took Peter’s heart there in the dark at the queer, +impersonal note in what she had said. What did it mean?</p> + +<p>Sheila gave the girl twenty-four hours to reach the San after receiving +the letter; she came in eighteen, and the nurse rejoiced at this good +omen. She had delegated Peter to meet all trains that day, take the girl +to her room, send for her at once, and tell nobody. Peter obeyed, and +early in the afternoon Sheila looked up from her reading to the boy to see +Peter standing in the doorway, the message on his lips.</p> + +<p>“Baggage delivered,” was Peter’s announcement.</p> + +<p>“Thank you. I’ll come in a minute and see if my key fits.” She hunted up +the little mother, left her in charge, and hurried over to the nurses’ +home.</p> + +<p>There in the big living-hall, perched in a wicker chair under the poster +of Old King Cole, Sheila found the girl, who was young<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> and oh, so pretty. +She looked about as capable of taking a plunge into the grim depths of +life and coming out safely as a toy Pom of weathering the waters of the +Devil’s Hole. “How shall I ever push her in?” thought Sheila as she held +out her hand in greeting.</p> + +<p>Clarisse took it with all the hectic impulsiveness of youth. “You’re his +nurse. Isn’t it great his coming back this way? All our set is engaged—or +about to be—but I’m the only one that’s got her man back with battle +scars all over him. Makes me feel like a story-book heroine.”</p> + +<p>Sheila O’Leary didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. She ended +by doing what probably surprised her more than it did the girl. She sat +down in the wicker chair herself and gathered the girl into her lap. “Oh, +you blessed, blessed baby!” she crooned softly.</p> + +<p>The girl pouted adorably. It was very evident that she liked to be petted, +coaxed, and spoiled. If there was a woman slumbering under all this +dimpling, infantile charm, she was quite indiscernible to the woman who +held her.</p> + +<p>Slowly she bent over the girl and let her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> face show all the delight she +could feel in her prettiness and baby ways. There must be sympathy between +them or her task would be hopeless. “There, let me untie that bewitching +bonnet of yours and take off your gloves. We have a lot to tell each other +before you see your soldier.”</p> + +<p>“But Phil—won’t he be waiting, wondering why I don’t come? Oh, I’m just +crazy to see him!”</p> + +<p>“He doesn’t know you’re here yet.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” The smooth, white forehead did its utmost to manage a frown. “Why, +didn’t he send for me?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“Who did? His mother wrote.”</p> + +<p>“I sent.”</p> + +<p>The round, childish eyes filled with apprehension; she wrenched herself +free of Sheila’s arms. “He isn’t going to—The letter said—?”</p> + +<p>“He’s better. Sit down, dear. That’s what we have to talk over. His body +is mending fast, but his mind—well, his mind has been taken prisoner.”</p> + +<p>Clarisse tossed an adorable crown of golden curls. “I don’t understand.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>“Didn’t +expect you to, at first. It’s this way. He’s been through some +very big, very terrible experiences, and he can’t forget them. He isn’t +the boy you used to play with, the boy who was happy just having a good +time. He’s grown very serious. That’s what experience is likely to do for +us all in time, but with him it’s come all in a heap. When that happens +you can’t go back and be happy in the old way. Do you see?”</p> + +<p>“Go on.”</p> + +<p>“He’s bound fast and walled about with the memories of what he has been +through—killing human beings, watching his comrades die, seeing what the +Germans have done. For the moment it has made him forget that the sun +shines and birds sing and the world is a place to be glad in. The bright +colors have faded out of life for him; everything looks gray and somber.”</p> + +<p>“Gee! and how he used to like a good cabaret with a jazz band!” The girl +whispered it, and there was awe in her voice. “And colors! I had to wear +the gayest things I had, to please him.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know. And he’ll like them best again, some day. Just be patient, +dear.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> And the waiting won’t be hard, you’ll have so much to do for him. +You’ll have to be bringing the sunshine back, making him listen to the +bird-songs, teaching him how to be glad, to love doing all the happy, +foolish boy-things he used to like.”</p> + +<p>“I see—I can.” The girl’s voice was breathless.</p> + +<p>“I’m sure you can.” Sheila tried to put conviction into her words. “At +first you may find it a little hard. It means—”</p> + +<p>“Yes?”</p> + +<p>“It means creeping into his prison with him, so gently, so lovingly, and +staying close beside him while you cut the memory-cords one by one. Could +you do that?”</p> + +<p>The girl sprang past Sheila toward the door. “Come! What are we waiting +for?”</p> + +<p>“But he doesn’t know you are here yet,” parried the nurse.</p> + +<p>“Let’s go and tell him, then. He always adored surprises.” The dimples in +her cheeks danced in anticipation while she took Sheila’s hand and tried +to drag her nearer the door. But at the threshold something in the woman’s +face stopped her. She hesitated. “Maybe—maybe he doesn’t like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> surprises +any more.” Again the impulsive hands were thrust into the nurse’s. “Tell +me, tell me honestly—You said you sent for me. Was it—Didn’t he want +me—to come?”</p> + +<p>And Sheila, remembering what the boy had loved about her, gave her back +the truth: “No, he has grown afraid of you. That’s another thing you will +have to bring back to him with the songs and the sunlight—his love for +you.”</p> + +<p>Her hand was flung aside and the girl flew past her, back to the wicker +chair under Old King Cole. Burying her head in her arms, she burst into +uncontrollable sobs, while Sheila stood motionless in the doorway and +waited. She must have waited an hour before the girl raised her eyes, wet +as her own. For Sheila knew that a woman’s soul was being born into the +world, and none understood better than she what the agony of travail meant +to the child who was giving it birth.</p> + +<p>“Come,” said Sheila, gently.</p> + +<p>The girl rose uncertainly; all the divine assurance of youth was gone. “I +think I see,” she began unsteadily. “I think I can.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>“I know you can.” And this time there was no doubt in Sheila’s heart.</p> + +<p>She saw to it that the little mother had been called away before they +reached the Surgical, so that the room was empty except for the occupant +of the cot. “Hello, boy!” she called, triumphantly, from the doorway. “I +have brought you the best present a soldier ever had,” and she pushed +Clarisse into the room and closed the door.</p> + +<p>For a moment those two young creatures looked at each other, overcome with +confusion and the self-consciousness of their own great change.</p> + +<p>The boy spoke first. “Clare!”</p> + +<p>“Phil!” It came in a breathless little cry, like a bird’s answer to its +mate. Then the girl followed. Across the room she flew, to the bed, and +down on her knees, hiding her face deep in the folds of coverlet and +hospital shirt. Words came forth chokingly at last, like bubbles of air +rising slowly to the surface.</p> + +<p>“Those letters—those awful letters! Just foolish things that didn’t +matter. One of the boys at the canteen—I used to wait on the table and +make believe every soldier I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> served was mine, and I always wore my +prettiest clothes—he said—the boy—that over there they didn’t want +anything but light stuff—those were his words—said a chap couldn’t stand +hearing that his girl was lonely.... He said to cut out all the blue funks +and the worries; the light stuff helped to steady a chap’s nerve. So I—”</p> + +<p>And then the boy lied like a soldier. “Don’t, Clare darling. I knew all +along you were playing off like a good sport. And it helped a lot. Gee! +how it helped!”</p> + +<p>When Sheila looked in, hours later, the girl was still by the bed, her +cheek on the pillow beside the boy’s.</p> + +<p>It was a strangely illusive Leerie that met Peter that night in the +rest-house after the ailing part of the San had been put safely to bed. +Her eyes seemed to transcend the stars, and her face might have served for +a young neophyte. As Peter saw, for the first time he glimpsed the signal +Fate had been playing with so many days.</p> + +<p>“What’s happened? Anything wrong with those cubs?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing. They’re as right as right can be.” Then with the old directness +Sheila<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> plunged headlong into the thing she knew must be done. “Man of +mine, I’m going to hurt you. Can you forgive and still understand?”</p> + +<p>“I can try.” Peter did his best to keep his voice from sounding too heavy, +for a fear was gripping at his heart, and his eyes sought Sheila’s face, +pleading as he would never have let his lips plead.</p> + +<p>Sheila covered her eyes. She didn’t want to see. It was too reminiscent of +the little boy lying awake in a dark attic, afraid of sleep. “We have both +done without happiness so long, don’t you think we can do without it a +little longer?”</p> + +<p>“I suppose so—if we must.” Peter’s voice was very dull. “But why? I’ve +always had an idea that happiness was something like opportunity; it had +to be snatched and held fast when it came your way, or you might never +have another chance at it.” Had Sheila brought him to the gates of +Paradise only to bar them against his entering? he wondered.</p> + +<p>The woman who loved him understood and laid her hand on his breast as if +she would stay the hurt there if she could. “It may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> make it easier if you +know that the giving up is going to be hard for me, too. I’ve thought +about that home of ours so long that I’ve begun to see it and all that +goes with it. I even stumble upon it in my dreams. It’s always at the end +of a long, tired road, going uphill. If I thought I should have to give it +up, I wouldn’t have the courage to do what I’m going to now.”</p> + +<p>She sat down on the bench, laid her arms over the sill of the rustic +window, and looked toward the pond. The night was very still; the blurred +outlines of the swans, huddled against the bank, were the only signs of +life. When she spoke it was almost to herself.</p> + +<p>“When they sent me away from the San three years ago I thought I could +never bear it—to go away alone, that way, disgraced, to begin work over +again in a strange place, among strange people. But I had to do it, just +as I have to do this.” She straightened and faced Peter. Her voice +changed; it belonged to the curt, determined Sheila.</p> + +<p>“I’m going across, to nurse the boys over there. The boy over in the +Surgical pointed the way for me. There’s a big thing going on in the +world—something almost as big as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> the war—it’s the business of getting +the boys ready for life after their share in the war is over, and I don’t +mean just nursing their bodies back to health. Everything is changed for +them; they’ve got new standards, new interests, new hearts, new souls, and +we women have got to keep pace with them. And we mustn’t fail them—don’t +you see that? Oh, I know I have no place of my own in the war: you are +safe, and I have no brothers. But I’m a woman—a nurse, thank God! And I’m +free to go for the mothers and sweethearts who can’t. Don’t you +understand?”</p> + +<p>And Peter answered from an overwhelmingly full and troubled heart, “Oh +yes, I understand.”</p> + +<p>“I knew you would.” Sheila raised starry eyes to the man who had never +failed her. “Those boys will need all the sympathy, all the wholesome +tenderness we can send across to them, and they’ll need our hands at their +backs until they get their foothold again. I’ve served my apprenticeship +at that so long I can do it.”</p> + +<p>Peter gathered her close in his arms. “God and I know how well.”</p> + +<p>It was not until they were leaving the gardens<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> that Peter asked the +question that had been in his mind all through the evening. “What about +the wedding? I suppose you’re not going to marry me, now.”</p> + +<p>“Can’t. Haven’t the courage. Man of mine, don’t you know that after I once +belonged to you I couldn’t leave you? I’ve only had sips of happiness so +far. If I once drained the cup, only God’s hand could take it from me.”</p> + +<p>“And the wedding? The old San’s just set its heart on that wedding.”</p> + +<p>The radiant smile crept back to Sheila’s lips. Even in the dark Peter +could tell that the old luminous Leerie was beside him once more. “Why, +that’s one of the nicest parts of it all. We’re going to pass our wedding +on to those children—make them a sort of wedding-present of it. Won’t +that be splendid?”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes,” said Peter, without enthusiasm. “Does it suit them?”</p> + +<p>“They don’t know yet. Guess I’d better go and tell them.”</p> + +<p>It is doubtful if anybody but Sheila O’Leary could have managed such an +affair and left every one reasonably happy over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> it—two of them +unreasonably so. She accepted the wedding collation bestowed by the +wealthy old ladies of the sanitarium and passed it over to the boy and his +betrothed as if it had been as trivial a gift as an ice-cream cone. In a +like manner she passed on the trousseau, kissed all the nurses rapturously +for their work, and piled it all into Clarisse’s arms with the remark that +it was lucky they were so nearly of a size. When she brought the +wedding-dress she kissed her, too, and said that she was going to make the +prettiest picture in it that the San or the soldier had seen in years. She +placated the management; she wheedled Miss Maxwell into a good humor; she +even coaxed Doctor Fuller into giving away the bride. Only Hennessy +refused to be propitiated.</p> + +<p>“Are ye thinkin’ of givin’ Mr. Brooks away with everythin’ else?” he +asked, scornfully; and then, his indignation rising to a white wrath, he +shouted, “I’ll not put bows on the swans, an’ I’ll not come to any +second-hand weddin’.”</p> + +<p>But he did come, and held with Flanders the satin ribbons they had +promised to hold for Sheila. And the wedding became one of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> the greenest +of all the memories that had gone down on the San books.</p> + +<p>As the sun clipped the far-away hills the boy was wheeled down the paths +to where the gold and white of early roses were massed in summer splendor. +Then came the girl with Sheila at her side; the girl had begged too hard +to be refused. But Sheila’s face was as white as it had been the day they +operated on Doctor Dempsy, and only Peter guessed what it cost her to +stand with the bride. To Peter’s care had been intrusted the little +mother, and he let her weep continually on his shoulder in between the +laughs he kept bringing to her lips.</p> + +<p>And it all ended merrily. Sheila saw to that. But perhaps the thing that +gave her the keenest pleasure was wheedling out of Mr. Crotchets his +bungalow that stood on the slopes beyond the golf-links for a honeymoon.</p> + +<p>“They’ll have all the quiet they want and the care he still needs,” she +told Peter when they were alone. “And nobody but the nurse in charge knows +about it—yet.” Then seeing the great longing in Peter’s eyes, she drew +him away from the crowd. “Listen,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> man of mine! I have the feeling that +when we are married there will be no wedding, just you and I and the +preacher. And in my heart I like it better that way.”</p> + +<p>“So do I,” agreed Peter.</p> + +<p>“I’m leaving—train to-night,” Sheila hurried on. “No use putting it off; +better sail as soon as the passport’s ready. There’s just one thing more I +want to say before I leave you.”</p> + +<p>Then Peter chuckled for the first time that day. “You can say it, of +course, but if you think you’re going to leave me behind, you’re mistaken. +I wired the chief the day you told me. They need another correspondent +over there. When it comes to passports there is some advantage in not +being a husband, after all. Well—are you glad?”</p> + +<p>When Hennessy came upon them, a few minutes later, they looked so +supremely happy and oblivious of the rest of the world that he was forced +to stop. “Sure, ye might be the bride an’ groom, afther all, by the looks +of ye. What’s come over ye all of a sudden?” And when Peter told him, and +they both put their hands in Hennessy’s in final parting, he shirred his +lips and whistled forth evidence of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> a satisfied emotion to which he added +a word of warning to Peter:</p> + +<p>“I’m not envyin’ ye, just the same, Mr. Brooks. Afore ye get her home +again ye’ll find the Irish say right, ‘A woman’s more throuble to look +afther than a thorn in the foot or a goat fetched back from the fair!’”</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="Chapter_VI" id="Chapter_VI"></a>Chapter VI</h2> +<h3>MONSIEUR SATAN</h3> + +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">There</span> had been nothing, perhaps, more radically changed by the rigors of +war than Atlantic transportation. The thrills of pleasure and romance that +attended the tourist in the days before the war had deepened to thrills of +another timbre, while romance had become more epic than idyllic. The happy +phrase of “going abroad” had given place to “going over” or “going +across”; such a trifling difference in words, but the accompaniment comes +in quite another key. It was no longer shouted in a care-free, +happy-go-lucky fashion; it may have had a ring of suppressed exultation; +but it was sure to be whispered with a quick intake of breath, and so +often it came through teeth that were clenched.</p> + +<p>The piers had changed their gala attire. The departure from this country +for another was no longer a matter of mere rejoicing and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> congratulatory +leave-taking. The gangways no longer swarmed with friends shouting, “Bon +voyage!” There was no free voicing of anticipation, no effervescing of +good humor. The Spirit of Adventure was there, but he had changed his +costume and his make-up. So had the good ships. Their black paint and +white trimmings were gone; gone were the gay red funnels; and in their +stead were massed the grays and blues, the greens and blacks of +camouflage. The piers were deserted. A thin stream of travelers sifted in; +there were a few officials and deckhands; and far outside, beyond hail of +ship or sea or traveler, in a barbed-wire inclosure, guarded by military +police, stood a few scattered, silent figures. They were the remnants war +had left of the once-upon-a-time jocose band of waving, shouting friends.</p> + +<p>All this Sheila O’Leary felt as she stood on the upper deck of a French +liner with Peter Brooks and watched their fellow-passengers board the +ship. She was tingling from head to foot with almost as many emotions as +there are ganglia in the nervous system. It was as if she had suddenly +claimed the world for a patient and had laid fingers to its pulse<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> for the +first time. Eagerly, impatiently, she was waiting to count each successive +beat until she should be able to read into the throbbing rhythm of it all +a meaning for herself.</p> + +<p>As Sheila thought in terms of her work, so Peter thought in terms of his. +It was all copy to him. Each group that followed another up the gangway +carried the promise of a story to Peter. There were Red Cross nurses, +canteen workers, a college unit for reconstruction work, a hospital unit, +scores of detached American officers going over for the first time, scores +of French and British returning, a few foreigners getting back to their +respective countries, and hosts of non-descripts whose civilian clothes +gave no hint of their missions. Last of all came a sudden, swift influx of +celestial blue.</p> + +<p>Peter smiled at them with anticipation, “Look, Leerie, the Blue Devils of +France! There ought to be the making of a good yarn.”</p> + +<p>But Sheila barely heard. The mass had captured her imagination on the +instant with a dramatic intensity too overpowering to be denied. +Unconsciously she smiled. They<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> were going back to fight again—to be +wounded. Who knew—in a month she might be nursing some of them. The Blue +Devils had reached the gangway; they were just below them when one looked +up. Black eyes as unfathomable as forest pools looked into Sheila’s quiet +gray ones. For a moment there was almost a greeting flashed between them; +as if they recognized something common to them both that lay in the past +or the future. It was one of those gossamer threads of fate that a few +glimpse rarely in their lives.</p> + +<p>Peter saw, and was on the point of giving tongue to his astonishment when +a voice from behind interrupted them: “The ship sails at ten; it lacks +thirty seconds of that. There is the typical instance of the way these +Devils obey their orders. Is it not so?”</p> + +<p>The voice savored of France. Sheila and Peter turned together to find a +little man, with a small, pleasant face, topped with shaggy brown hair, +and dabs of mustache and beard placed like a colon under his nose. His +shrug was the conclusive evidence of his nationality.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>“Well, thirty seconds is enough,” laughed Sheila. “Time is as precious as +food, gold, or gunpowder these days. Why waste it?”</p> + +<p>“And men,” supplemented the little man. “Perhaps, mad’moiselle already +knows Bertrand Fauchet, the young captain who passed below?”</p> + +<p>Sheila shook her head.</p> + +<p>The little man rubbed his hands together in keen enjoyment. “Ah, there is +a man; but they are all men. The Boches have named them well. They fight +like demons, then they rest and play like children until their turn comes +to fight again. And Fauchet—he is a devil of a devil, possessed of a +thousand lives. Mad’moiselle would adore him.”</p> + +<p>Sheila’s demure chin tilted mutinously, “But I don’t like devils, even +blue ones.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, you do not understand. C’est la guerre. We must lock away in our +hearts all the pity, all the tenderness, as we hide our jewels and our +treasures and mask our cathedrals. If we did not they would all be +destroyed and we would go quite mad.” He smiled whimsically at Sheila, as +one smiles at a child who fails to comprehend.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> “Wait—wait till +mad’moiselle sees France. Then—” He finished with a shrug and left them.</p> + +<p>They were in midstream when they saw the little man again. He came +hurrying toward them with both hands outstretched to Peter. “It is Mr. +Brooks. I did not know when I was speaking with you and mad’moiselle +before. They told me at the office of your paper that you would be sailing +to-day. May I present Jacques Marchand of the <i>Figaro</i>, a +fellow-journalist?” and he made a profound bow which included Sheila.</p> + +<p>Peter introduced the girl beside him and the little man looked at her with +whetted interest and a twinkle of suppressed humor. “You women of America, +you come like battalions of good angels to nurse our devils. Eh bien, +before the sun goes down you shall meet your first one. Au ’voir till +then.”</p> + +<p>They were in the stern, watching the last of the sun in their wake as it +turned myriads of whirring wings to iridescent gold, when the little man +found them again. This time he was not alone. Close upon his heels came +the captain of the Blue Devils; and again the black eyes met Sheila’s when +they were still a man’s length apart.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>“Mad’moiselle,” said Jacques Marchand, “I have brought, as I +promised—Monsieur Satan—Mad’moiselle O’Leary. Look him well over; you +will see he has not the horns or cloven feet, nevertheless—mais, voilà.”</p> + +<p>The captain was blushing like a very bashful little boy; he was smiling as +naïvely as an infant. Sheila guessed at his age and placed it not far from +twenty. Who had ever conceived of a boy-Mephistopheles? It was absurd. A +genuine diabolical personage had no right to a pre-middle age; for him all +years prior to forty should not exist. And here was undeniably a boy, +whose very bashfulness and naïveté bore witness that he had not entirely +grown up. So Sheila smiled back upon him with the frankness and abandon +one feels so safe in bestowing upon youth.</p> + +<p>“This paper-man, he likes to be what you call funny. It pays him well, and +he must keep, what you say, his feet in. But I do not like always his +little jokes. I will make a new introduce so. Bertrand Fauchet, capitaine +Chasseurs Alpins, very much at your service, ma’am’selle.” The soldier +bowed with solemnity. It was evident he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> felt his dignity had been +trampled on and resented it.</p> + +<p>The little man of the <i>Figaro</i> wagged a forefinger at him. “Ah, tata, +garçon. Remember, I am your godfather in the battalion. It is I that give +you the name. Three years ago in the Café des Alcazar I call you Monsieur +Satan, and it stick. You cannot rub it off; you cannot make France forget +it; and when you come back so fierce—so terrific from the fighting at +Troyes where you get the Croix de Guerre it is not for Capitaine Fauchet +the men shout—non. It is for Monsieur Satan they shout, for the devil of +a Blue Devil. Eh, mon ami?” And he laid a loving arm across the other’s +shoulder.</p> + +<p>During the crossing the four met often; the journalist always kindly and +loquacious, Monsieur Satan always shy. Sometimes he joined Sheila alone +for an after-dinner promenade. It was always at that hour when the day was +fading into a luminous twilight that told of stars to come, and they +tramped the decks in a strange, companionable silence. It was plain that +Monsieur Satan did not wish to talk, and Sheila gave him freely the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> +silence he craved. Once he stopped and looked over the railing, hard at +the sea horizon.</p> + +<p>“Did you ever think, ma’am’selle,” he said, softly, “how the great ocean +shows nothing of the war? The underneath may be choked with sunken ships, +the murdered ships, but the ocean has no scars. It is not like our +sorrowful France—all scars. So—I find it good to look at this and +forget. Perhaps, some day, a peace like this will come to the heart of +Bertrand Fauchet. Qui savez?”</p> + +<p>And another time, when he was wishing her good night, he added: “Dormez +bien—sans songes, ma’am’selle. The dreams, they are bad.”</p> + +<p>But generally he left her with just a pressure of the hand and an “<i>Au +’voir</i>.” And yet there was always in his voice a suppressed gratitude as +for a gift.</p> + +<p>When Peter was alone with him he tried to draw him out and got nothing for +his pains. The story he had scented on their day of embarkation had +undoubtedly left no trail. When he aired his disappointment good-naturedly +to Sheila she only laughed at him.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>“If you want a story go to some of the other devils; we’ll never know more +of Monsieur Satan till Fate turns interlocutor.”</p> + +<p>“Well, he’s certainly the most slumbering devil I ever saw. If that’s the +worst French soil can propagate, it’s hard to believe the Germans they +tackle get much of an inferno.”</p> + +<p>In spite of his skepticism, however, Peter had an unexpected glimpse into +that inferno the day before they landed. For thirty-six hours they had +been running through the danger zone with life-boats loose on their +davits, life-belts ready for adjustment, and nerves tense. Then the +tension had suddenly relaxed, everybody talked with everybody else, +displaying a lack of restraint that bordered on intimacy. Peter and Sheila +were strolling an almost deserted deck toward a group amidships. As they +neared it they saw it was dominated by two principal figures—one a +professional philanthropist with more sentiment than judgment, and the +other Monsieur Satan. The philanthropist was talking in what Peter termed +an “open-throttle voice.”</p> + +<p>“But you don’t mean you would ever harm a defenseless prisoner, Captain +Fauchet?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> Of course you would never allow your men to kill a fallen enemy +or one supplicating mercy.”</p> + +<p>“Supplicating mercy—bah!” The mouth that could smile so boyishly had a +diabolical twist, the eyes blazed like hell-fires, as Peter said +afterward. “There is only the one Boche that is safe, madame—the dead +Boche. When we find them wriggling I teach my men to make them +safe—quickly!” The lips smiled sardonically. Monsieur Satan was a boy no +longer; in some inexplicable fashion he had come into full possession of +that Mephistophelian middle-age.</p> + +<p>But the lady philanthropist had neither the eyes to see nor the +intelligence to understand. Instead she clumsily parried with invisible +forces. “Of course you don’t mean that, Captain Fauchet. You are just +making believe you are a wicked man. I believe you are trying to stuff me, +as our American slang puts it. Now if a wounded German came running toward +you crying Kamerad—”</p> + +<p>“Sacrebleu! Oui, madame, once I listen to that Kamerad. But now—jamais! +When they call it with their lying tongues I shout them back ‘Kamerad to +hell!’ and I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> zigeuille.” The right hand made a swift, subtle twist with a +deep thrust. It took little imagination to guess what it was supposed to +be holding. For a second Monsieur Satan’s eyes still continued to blaze at +the woman before him; then he tossed back his head, plunged through the +crowd, and was gone.</p> + +<p>“A devil of a Blue Devil,” quoted Peter under his breath. “Our friend, +Monsieur Marchand, was not indulging in hyperbole after all.”</p> + +<p>Sheila watched him go and said nothing.</p> + +<p>That twilight, when Monsieur Satan joined her, he looked as harmless as +ever, only a trifle more bashful. “Perhaps ma’am’selle will care no longer +to promenade with the wicked man. N’est ce pas?”</p> + +<p>“A brave man,” corrected Sheila, and she looked straight into the black +eyes. “A brave man who has given himself body and soul to France.”</p> + +<p>“Body and soul. Oui, ma’am’selle. But listen—there is something—” His +face changed in a breath, the eyes were blazing again, the mouth had +turned as sinister as his <i>nom de guerre</i> signified. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> something in +Sheila’s eyes checked him. He put out a hand unconsciously and laid it on +her as though to steady himself. “Non, ma’am’selle. One need not tell +everything. You will see enough—enough.”</p> + +<p>When they landed, his good-bys to her were curiously brief. He held her +hand a second as if he would have said a great deal; then with a quick +“<i>Au ’voir</i>” he flung it from him and was down the gangway. But with Peter +it was different. He found him alone and vouchsafed him for the first time +what might have been called conversation.</p> + +<p>“I do not know until yesterday that you were betrothed to Ma’am’selle +O’Leary. That is so?”</p> + +<p>Peter nodded.</p> + +<p>“You have been generous, monsieur. I wish to thank you.”</p> + +<p>Peter held out his hand. “Oh, that’s all right. American men aren’t given +to being jealous, as a rule. Besides, Miss O’Leary is the sort one has no +right to be selfish with. I guess you understand?”</p> + +<p>“Oui, monsieur. She belongs a little to every one, man or child, who needs +the sympathy, the kind word, the loving heart.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> Moi, I comprehend. Some +time, perhaps, I render back the service. Then you can trust me; the honor +of Bertrand Fauchet can be trusted with women. Adieu, monsieur.”</p> + +<p>By dawn the next day the passengers of the liner were scattering to the +far corners of the fighting-front. Jacques Marchand had gone, <i>via</i> the +office of the <i>Figaro</i>, to Flanders. Monsieur Satan had been despatched to +relieve another captain of the Chasseurs Alpins with French outposts along +the Oise. Peter had received his war permits to join the A. E. F. in +action and Sheila had received her appointment to an evacuation hospital +near the front. Her parting with Peter was over before either of them had +time to realize it. Her train left the Gare du Nord before his. They had +very little to say, these two who had claimed each other out of all the +world and now were putting aside their personal happiness that they might +give their service where it was so really needed. There were no +whimperings of heart, no conscious self-righteousness; only a great +gladness that hard work lay before them and that they understood each +other.</p> + +<p>“Good-by, man o’ mine. Whatever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> happens, remember I am yours for always, +and death doesn’t count,” and Sheila laid her lips to Peter’s in final +pledge.</p> + +<p>“I know,” said Peter. “That’s what makes all this so absurdly easy. And, +sweetheart, you are to remember this, never put any thought of me before +what you feel you have got to do. Don’t bungle your instincts. I’d swear +by them next to God’s own.”</p> + +<p>And so they went their separate ways.</p> + +<p>There was no apprenticeship for Sheila in the hospital whither she was +sent. The chief of the surgical staff gave a cursory glance over the +letter she had brought from the San, signed by the three leading surgeons +in that state; then he looked hard at her.</p> + +<p>“Hm ... m! And strong into the bargain. You’re a godsend, Miss O’Leary.”</p> + +<p>Before the day had gone she was in charge of one of the operating-rooms; +by midnight they had fifty-three major operations. And the days that +followed were much the same; they passed more like dreams than realities. +There were a few sane, clear moments when Sheila realized that the sky was +very blue or leaden gray; that the sun shone or did not shine, that the +wards were cheery places and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> that all about her were faces consecrated to +unselfish work or to patient suffering. These were the times when she +could stop for a chat with the boys or write letters home for them. But +for the most part she was being hurled through a maelstrom of operations +and dressings with just enough time between to snatch her share of food +and sleep. Her enthusiasm was unbounded for the marvelous efficiency of it +all. She could never have believed that so many delicate operations could +have been done in so few hours, that wounds could heal with such rapidity, +that nerves could rebound and hearts come sturdily through to go about +their business of keeping their owners alive. And every boy brought to her +room was a fighting chance; but the fight was up to her and the surgeons, +and they fought as archangels might to restore a new heaven on a befouled +earth. Life had always seemed full and worth while to her. Now it seemed a +super-life, shorn of everything petty and futile.</p> + +<p>“War may be hell; very likely it is for those who make it; but for us who +do the patching afterward it’s like the Day of Creation. I feel as if I’d +put new souls into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> mended bodies.” And the gruff, overtired chief who +heard her smiled and mumbled to himself, “Those of us who survive will all +have new souls; old ones have atrophied and dropped off.”</p> + +<p>Fall was slow in coming. Instead of settling down to trench hibernating as +had been the custom for three years, the Entente kept to its periodic +attacks, pushing the enemy back farther and still a little farther, so +that trenches were no longer the permanent abiding-places they had been in +the past. Just as every one was prophesying the numbing of hostilities +until spring, the rumor spread of Foch’s final drive. On the heels of the +rumor came the drive itself. Hospitals were taxed to their utmost; +surgeons and nurses worked for days with a maximum of four hours’ sleep a +night. In Sheila’s hospital Anzacs, Territorials, poilus, Americans, +Tommies, and Zouaves poured in indiscriminately. Mattresses covered every +square inch on the floor and canvas was stretched in the yard over many +more. The number of operating-tables gave out at the beginning and they +used stretchers, boards—anything that could hold a wounded man.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>“It’s our +last pull,” said the doctors. “If we can keep going three—four +more days, we’ll have as many months to get back some of our wind.”</p> + +<p>“Of course we’ll keep going,” said the nurses. And they slept in their +clothes for those days and did dressings in their sleep.</p> + +<p>When it was over and they had settled down to what was near-routine again +they began to sort out the minor cases and pass on the convalescents. +Sheila, who had slept on the threshold of her room for weeks, was dragged +forth by the chief to make the rounds with him and dispose of the +negligible cases. It was in the last ward that she came upon Monsieur +Satan.</p> + +<p>From across the room she was conscious of the change in him. He was not +much hurt—an exploding shell had damaged one foot and his heart had been +strained. It was a mental change that caught Sheila’s attention. The eyes +had grown abnormally alert and cunning; there was nothing boyish or naïve +left to the mouth; it was sinister, vengeful, unrelenting. He was in a +wheel-chair between two husky giants of Australians who kept wary eyes +upon him. As the surgeon and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> the nurse reached them, Monsieur Satan +tossed his head back with a sudden recognition, and Sheila held out a +friendly hand.</p> + +<p>“I am glad to see you again, Captain Fauchet; not much of a scratch, I +hope.”</p> + +<p>The eyes held their cunning, the sinister droop to the lips intensified as +they curved mockingly to greet her: “Bon! It is Ma’am’selle O’Leary. The +scratch it is nothing. Bertrand Fauchet has still the two good hands to +kill with.” He curled them as if over the hilts of invisible weapons, and +with lightning thrusts attacked the air about him. “Une, deux, trois, +quatre, cinq—Ha-ha!” and the appalling pantomime ended with a diabolical +laugh.</p> + +<p>In some inexplicable fashion he had come into full possession of his <i>nom +de guerre</i>. Sheila had thought her nerves steel, her control unshakable; +but she was shuddering when they reached the corridor. There she broke +through the orthodox repression of her calling and quizzed the chief.</p> + +<p>“What’s happened? He wasn’t like that when I knew him. If it was +witch-times we’d say he’d been caught by the evil eye.”</p> + +<p>“Same thing, brought up to date. It’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> shell shock. Memory all right, +nerves and brain speeded up like a maniac; he’s come back obsessed with +the idea he must kill. First night he was brought in, before we knew what +the matter was, he knifed the two Germans in his ward. Since then we’ve +kept him safe between these two Australians, but he has their nerves +almost shattered.” The chief smiled grimly.</p> + +<p>To Sheila it seemed diabolically logical. What was more natural in this +business of war than that when one’s reason went over the top it should +grip the mad desire to kill? But the horror of it! She turned back to the +day’s work white and sick at heart. For twenty-four hours she accepted it +as inevitable. At the end of that time her memory was harkening back to +the bashful boy of the French liner, the boy who could smile like a lost +cherub, who looked at her with the fineness of soul that made her +companionship a willing gift. Had that fine, simple part of him been blown +to eternity and could eternity alone bring it back? And what of the years +before him, the years such a physique was bound to claim? Did it mean a +mad-cell with a keeper?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>At the end of a third day the old Leerie of the San was walking through +the wards of the hospital with her lamp trimmed and burning, casting such +a radiance on that eager face that the men turned in their cots to catch +the last look of her as she passed; and after she had gone blinked across +at one another as if to say: “Did you see it? Did you feel it? And what +was it, anyway?”</p> + +<p>She was looking for some one; and she found him with a leg shot off, +playing a mouth-organ in the farthest corner of one ward. He was a +Chasseur Alpin; he had been wounded in the same charge as Monsieur Satan. +Sheila was searching for cause and effect and she prayed this man might +help her find them. As she sat down on the edge of the cot she thanked her +particular star for a speaking knowledge of French. “Bon jour, mon ami. I +have come for your help. C’est pour Capitaine Fauchet.”</p> + +<p>The mouth-organ dropped to the floor. The eyes that had been merely +pleasantly retrospective gathered gloom. “Mais, que voulez-vous? All the +others say it is hopeless. Tell me, ma’am’selle, what can I do?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know—I hardly know what any of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> us can do. But we must try +something. We know so little about shell shock, so often the impossible +happens. Tell me, were you with him?”</p> + +<p>The soldier hitched himself forward and leaned over on one elbow. +“Toujours, ma’am’selle, always I am with him. Listen. I can tell you. I +was born in the little town of Tourteron where Bertrand Fauchet was +born—and where Nanette came to live with her brother Paul and their +uncle, the good abbé. I was not of their class; but we all played together +as children and even then Bertrand loved Nanette. The year war came they +were betrothed. I am not tiring ma’am’selle?”</p> + +<p>“No. Go on.”</p> + +<p>“We both enlisted in the Chasseurs Alpins. They made Bertrand a +lieutenant, then a captain—he was a man to lead. And how kind, how good +to his men! That was before he had won his nom de guerre—before they +called him Monsieur Satan. If there was a danger he would see it first and +race for it, to get ahead of his men. He would give them no orders that he +would not fill with them; and always so pitying for the prisoners.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> ‘Treat +them kindly, mes garçons,’ he would cry; and what mercy he would show! Mon +Dieu! I have seen him, when his mouth was cracking with the thirst, pour +the last drop from his canteen down the throat of a dying Boche, or share +the last bread in his baluchon with a wounded prisoner. And the many times +he has crept into No Man’s Land to bring in a blessé we could hear moaning +in the dark; and when it turned out a Boche, as so often it did, he would +carry him with the same tenderness. That was Bertrand Fauchet when war +began. Once I ask him, ‘Why are you so careful with the Boches?’ and he +smiled that little-boy smile of his and say: ‘Why not? We are still +gentlemen if we are at war. And listen, François—some day our little +Tourteron may fall into Boche hands. I would have them know many +kindnesses from us before that happens.’</p> + +<p>“Eh bien, Tourteron did fall into their hands, ma’am’selle, and there it +has been until a fortnight ago. The German ranks swept it like a sea and +made it their own, as they made the houses, the cattle, the orchards, the +maids, quite their own. You<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> comprehend? After that Bertrand fight like +the devil and pray like the saint. Then one day a Boche stabs +Paul—Nanette’s brother Paul—as he stoops to succor him. Fauchet sees; +and he hears the tales that come across the trenches to us. The abbé is +crucified to the chapel door because he gives sanctuary to the young +girls; Père Fauchet is shot in the Square with other anciens for example. +After that Capitaine Fauchet gives us the order ‘no mercy,’ and we kill in +battle and out. Ma’am’selle shudders—mais, que voulez-vous? He is +Monsieur Satan now; but I still think he prays.</p> + +<p>“And now comes the big drive of the Supreme Command. Village after village +that has been Boche land for four years becomes French again. The people +go mad with joy; they come rushing out to meet our regiments like souls +turned out of hell by God Himself. But such souls, ma’am’selle! Be +thankful in your heart you shall never have the little places of America +thrown back to you by a retreating Boche army, never look into the faces +of the people who have been made to serve their desires. It is like when +the tide goes out on the coast and leaves behind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> it wreckage and slime. +Only here it was human wreckage.</p> + +<p>“At last the night came when we lay outside Tourteron. Bertrand called for +me and we bivouacked together. We were to attack some time before dawn, +after the moon had set. We could not trust our tongues—at such times +things are better left unsaid; so we lay and smoked and prayed against +what we feared. Only once Bertrand spoke—‘François, to-morrow will see me +always a devil or a saint, le bon Dieu knows which.'</p> + +<p>“The moon shone bright till after midnight. We lay under cover of thin +weeds, and beyond lay the meadow and stream and then the town. About +twelve we heard the crisp bark of a sniper—two, three shots; then +everything was still as death again. We were watching the shadows play +across the meadow and timing the minutes before the moon would sink, when +out of one of those shadows she came—straight across the meadow and the +moonlight. It was Nanette, ma'am'selle. We knew it on the instant. She had +a way of carrying the head and a step one could not forget. It was she the +sniper had been after. One side of her face<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> was crimson, the other side +white and beautiful. But she did not seem to know, and the first look I +had told me she had gone quite mad.</p> + +<p>“I could feel Bertrand Fauchet stiffen by my side; I could feel him reach +out for my Rosalie and grip it fast. Then he began a low or crooning call. +He dared not call out loud—he dared not move to give our troops away! It +was to be a surprise attack. So all he could do was to wait and call +softly as to a little child, ‘Nanette chérie, allons, allons!’</p> + +<p>“There had been a skirmish in the meadow two days before; we had given way +and the handful of dead we had left behind were still unburied. I think +Nanette had heard that the Chasseurs Alpins had come and she had stolen +out to find her lover. She came slowly, so slowly, and frail as a shadow +herself. As she passed each corpse she knelt beside it and sang the +foolish little berceuse that Poitou mothers sing to their babies. We could +hear the humming far away, and as she came nearer we could hear the words. +Ma’am’selle knows them, perhaps?</p> + +<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> +“‘Ah! Ah! papillon, marie-toi—<br /> +Hélas, mon maître, je n’ai pas de quoi,<br /> +La dans ma bergeri-e<br /> +J’ai cent moutons; ça s’ra pour faire les noces de papillon.’”</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="bbox" style="width: 418px; height: 550px;"><img src="images/ill03.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="center">“The first look I had told me she had gone quite mad”</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>The soldier crooned the song through to himself as if under the spell of +the story he was telling. Then he went on. “She sang it through each time, +patting the blue coats, pushing back the caps of those who still wore +them, looking hard into each dead face. But she would always turn away +with the little shake of the head, so triste, ma’am’selle. And all the +time the man beside me calling out his heart in a +whisper—‘Nanette—Nanette—allons, chérie!’</p> + +<p>“She was not twenty yards away, the arms of Bertrand Fauchet were reaching +out to take her, when, pouf! the sniper barked again and Nanette went down +like a pale cornflower before the reaper. And all the time we laid there, +waiting for the moon to set. When we charge we charge like devils. We +swept Tourteron clean of the Boches; <i>and we take no prisoners!</i> For that +night every man remember the one thing, they love their captain and they +see what he has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> seen. But before the day is gone we are sane men again, +all but our captain. The shell that takes my leg takes what pity, what +softness he has left, and leaves him with just the frenzy to kill. And it +is not for me to wonder—moi—for I know all.”</p> + +<p>The story haunted Sheila for days; always when she closed her eyes she +could see the girl Nanette coming across the meadow in the moonlight. She +never failed to open them before she saw too far. The plaintive melody of +the berceuse rang in her ears on duty and off, till at last she could +stand it no longer. It was the old dominant Leerie who hunted up the +chief.</p> + +<p>“Colonel Sparks, I want you to put me on Captain Fauchet’s case. The work +is lighter now; you can do with one less operating-room. I know it’s bad +form to interfere, but I want my chance on that case.”</p> + +<p>The chief looked his surprise. “I’ve heard of your fondness for breaking +rules—wondered when you were going to begin. I don’t mind giving you up, +but that case is hopeless. I’m sure of it. Listen—and this isn’t for +publication—Fauchet got out of his ward again, hid in the corridors until +the nurse was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> gone, and killed another German last night. That man is +incurably insane and we can’t keep him here any longer.”</p> + +<p>“Please!” There was a look about Leerie that could not be denied, a +compelling prayer for the right to save another human being. “You could +keep him a little longer; I’ll promise there’ll be no more dead Germans. +Give me my chance.”</p> + +<p>“What’s your idea?”</p> + +<p>The girl raised a deprecating hand. “Something so crazy that you’d laugh +at it. Let me keep it to myself—and give me Captain Fauchet.”</p> + +<p>In the end Leerie had her wish. The little room at the end of a ward, used +heretofore for supplies, was turned into a private room, and Monsieur +Satan was moved in, with Sheila O’Leary as guardian. It was very evident +that the patient approved. Once the door was closed behind them, he +beckoned the nurse to him with malignant joy.</p> + +<p>“They are all Germans out there—I’ve just discovered it. Sooner or later +they will all have to be destroyed. You are an American. I can swear to +that, for I saw you on a liner coming from America and your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> French is so +bad, pardonnez-moi, it could not be anything but American. That is why I +trust you. You are with me against the Boches, n’est-ce pas?”</p> + +<p>Sheila solemnly agreed.</p> + +<p>“Eh bien, listen. The world is slowly turning Boche. You pour a little +Pinard into water and what do you get? Crimson! Well, you scatter a few +Boches over the earth and what have you? A German world colored Prussian +blue. Come closer, ma’am’selle.” He put out nervous hands and drew her +down so he could whisper his words. “And the cure, ma’am’selle, the cure? +Ah, moi, Monsieur Satan, knows it.”</p> + +<p>They spent the rest of the day in discussing the killing qualities of +shells, grenades, bombs; the stabbing qualities of bayonets, daggers, +swords; the exploding properties of dynamite, nitroglycerin, TNT, and +others. As they talked Monsieur Satan sucked in his breath exultantly and +hissed between his teeth, “<i>Zigouille, toujours zigouille!</i>” while his +hand stabbed and twisted into the air.</p> + +<p>Another day and he had taken Sheila entirely into his confidence. “I have +my mind made. You shall hear the cure,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> ma’am’selle, for you and I will be +partners. A Boche world can be cured but the one way—destroyed, +completely destroyed,” and he laughed uproariously. Then his eyes +narrowed; he was all cunning and intensity, a beast of prey crouched for +the spring. “Ah, but we must whisper; there are spies everywhere. The men +in the wards are all spies pretending they are French wounded; and the +doctors are spies. Oh, the Boches are damnably clever, but we will be more +damnable—we will outwit them. We will blow them into a million atoms. +They will make good fertilizer for French vineyards in a hundred years. Eh +bien?”</p> + +<p>So Sheila became partner in evolving the most colossal crime the world had +ever known. Everything played into her hands and gave credence to her +deceptions. The great cases that came by night packed with dressings were +to Monsieur Satan air-bombs with propellers. They were to be set loose on +the day appointed in such millions that the air would be charged with +them, the sun blotted out; and they would drop in exploding masses over +the earth, exterminating humanity.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>“They shall be like the hordes of locusts that nearly destroyed +Egypt—only these shall destroy. And how every one shall run in terror! +You will see, ma’am’selle. It will be a good sight.” And Monsieur Satan +rubbed his hands in keen anticipation.</p> + +<p>The tanks of oxygen placed on motor-trucks, the gasoline-tanks, were +nothing else than a deadly gas. The partners had concocted it out of the +strangest compounds, unshed-tears, heart-agony, fear-in-the-night, +snipers’ barks, and moonshine. Monsieur Satan chuckled over the formula +and said he would swear not a living soul could withstand a single whiff +of it. It was agreed that the makers of the gas—mythological beings +Sheila had created—should be killed at once so that their secret should +never be discovered; and Sheila herself was despatched to compass the +deed. Before she returned the bell in the church near by was tolling for +their parting souls; and Monsieur Satan chuckled as he cast admiring +glances at this prompt executioner.</p> + +<p>“You are a good pupil, ma’am’selle; you learn quickly. Now the maps.” And +they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> fell to diagraming where the piping for this deadly gas should be +laid.</p> + +<p>Not an inch of the old world was to be left peopled; from east to west and +north to south everything was to be destroyed. No, not everything. Even as +Monsieur Satan decreed it he hesitated. “There are the children, I +think—yes, I think they shall live. Their hearts are pure; the Boches +cannot contaminate them. They shall live after us with no memory of evil, +so they can build again the beautiful world.” He stopped and looked across +at the nurse with a haunting, wistful stare. “Tell me, ma’am’selle, was +the world ever beautiful?”</p> + +<p>“Very beautiful, capitaine.”</p> + +<p>He passed an uncertain hand over his eyes. “I seem to remember that it +was; but now I see it always running with red blood boiling from hell.”</p> + +<p>After that the children were always in his mind; as he planned the +destruction of the rest of the world he planned their re-creation. +Thereupon Sheila saw to it that the war orphans from the <i>crêche</i> came to +play in the hospital gardens—under the window of the little room. Soon it +became a custom for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> Monsieur Satan to look for them, to ask their names, +and wave gaily to them. And they waved back. And the chief of the surgical +staff began to marvel that Monsieur Satan should give no more trouble.</p> + +<p>Among them was a little girl, a wan, ethereal little creature who sat +apart from the other children and watched their play with far-away, +haunting eyes, as if she wondered what in the world they were doing. +Sheila had found toys for her—a ball, a doll, a jumping-jack—and tried +to coax her to play. But she only clung to them for their rare value as +possessions; as a means to enjoyment they were quite meaningless. From one +of the older children Sheila got her story. Her father had been killed, +her mother was with the Boches; there was no one else. With an aching +heart the nurse wondered how many thousand Madelines France held.</p> + +<p>One day she brought the child in to Monsieur Satan and repeated her story. +He listened wisely, patting her on the head, and then whispered to Sheila: +“Ah, what did I say! These Boches—they get everything—the mothers, the +sweethearts.” Then to Madeline: “Listen, ma pauvre; you shall<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> have the +sadness no longer. Monsieur Satan will promise you happiness, ah, such +happiness in the new beautiful world he is preparing for you. Now go. But +’sh ... sh! You must say nothing.”</p> + +<p>From this moment Sheila became senior partner. It was she who suggested +all the extraordinary horrors Monsieur Satan had overlooked. It was she +who speeded up time and plans. “I have the hospitals and streets all mined +in case the flying bombs should not come thick enough; and I have the +wells poisoned. Isn’t that a clever idea?”</p> + +<p>The man looked disturbed. “That’s as clever as the Boches. But the +children—where will they drink? You must take care of the children.”</p> + +<p>Then Sheila played her trump card and said the thing she had been waiting +so long to say. Like Monsieur Satan she hissed the words between her +teeth, while her face took on all the diabolical cunning it could muster. +“The children—bah! What do they matter, after all? I have decided—the +children shall be destroyed.”</p> + +<p>Monsieur Satan sprang from his chair. He pinioned her arms behind her, +forcing her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> back so he could look deep into her eyes with all the hate +and mercilessness his soul harbored. “Touch Madeline—the children, never! +Let so much as one little hair of their heads be harmed and I—Monsieur +Satan—will kill you!”</p> + +<p>She left him with a non-committal shrug, left him panting and swearing +softly under his breath.</p> + +<p>From that moment he watched Sheila suspiciously and followed the children +with jealous eyes. For Madeline he called constantly; and she sat on his +knee by the hour while he danced the jumping-jack outrageously and taught +her to sing to the doll a certain foolish berceuse that Poitou mothers +sing to their babies.</p> + +<p>Sheila had planned to stage their day of destruction with the craft of a +master manager. She had had to take certain officials into her confidence +and get the chief to sign such orders as had never been issued in a +hospital before. But in the end Fate staged it, and did it infinitely +better than the nurse had even conceived it. The hour of doom struck a +full half-day too soon—the children were playing in the gardens, under +Monsieur<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> Satan’s window instead of being in the cellar of the <i>crêche</i> as +he had decreed; and Sheila was helping another head nurse do dressings in +the ward outside.</p> + +<p>There were only a few minutes after the siren blew before the first of the +great Fokkers appeared over the city. Monsieur Satan’s mind went strangely +blank; the children stopped their play and gaped stupidly into the sky; +Sheila did nothing but listen. Then the bombs began to rain down on the +city. The noise was terrific. The children ran aimlessly about, shrieking +pitifully. It was this that set Monsieur Satan’s mind to working again. He +broke out of the little room like the madman he was. He might have been +Lucifer himself as he stumbled along on his bandaged foot, his hair erect, +his eyes blazing a thousand inextinguishable fires. In the corridor he +came upon Sheila, with other nurses and doctors, hurrying to gather in the +out-of-door patients. As he overtook them a bomb struck the hospital.</p> + +<p>“Sacrebleu!” he shouted. “You bungler! you fool of a destroyer! It was not +the hour—and the children—First I go to save them. Afterward I come to +kill you, ma’am’selle.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>He was out before them all, through the entrance and down the steps, when +another bomb struck. The doorway and the pillars were crushed to gravel +and Monsieur Satan was hurled headlong across the gardens. In an instant +he was up, stumbling frantically toward the children, his arms +outstretched in appealing vindication to those small, quivering faces +turned to him in their hour of annihilation. “Mes enfants, have no fear. I +come—I come.”</p> + +<p>A third bomb fell. The children were tumbled in a heap like a pile of +jackstraws. Monsieur Satan had time enough to see them go down before a +fourth followed with the quick precision of an automatic. Yes, he saw; and +in that horror-smiting moment believed it all a part of his great scheme +of destruction; then the universe went to pieces about him and something +crumbled inside his brain. He stood transfixed to the earth, staring +helplessly in front of him, as immovable as a graven image.</p> + +<p>It is one of the anomalies of war that the things that apparently destroy +sometimes re-create. The gigantic impact of exploding masses may destroy a +man’s hearing, his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> sight, his memory, or his mercy, and leave him thus +maimed for all time. But it happens, sometimes, that the first shock is +followed by another which restores with the suddenness of a miracle and +makes the man whole again. That delicate bit of human mechanism which has +been battered out of place is battered in, by the merest chance.</p> + +<p>So it was with Monsieur Satan; and when Sheila and the chief found him he +was rubbing his eyes as children will who wake and find themselves in +strange places. He saw only the chief at first and tried to pull himself +together.</p> + +<p>“Ah, monsieur, I think some things have happened—but I cannot as yet make +the full report. I am Bertrand Fauchet, Chasseur Alpin,” and he tried to +click his bandaged heel against his shoe. Then he looked beyond and saw +Sheila. It was as if he was seeing her for the first time since they had +separated at the French quay. “Bon Dieu! It is Ma’am’selle O’Leary.” He +held out a shaking hand. “We meet in the thick of war—is it not so?”</p> + +<p>His eyes left Sheila and traveled apprehensively to the children. They +were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> wriggling themselves free of one another; frightened and bruised, +but not hurt, barring one. The smallest of them all lay on the outskirts +of the heap, quite motionless.</p> + +<p>“If you will permit,” Monsieur Satan stumbled on and gently picked up +Madeline. He looked all compassion and bewilderment. “I do not altogether +understand, ma’am’selle. But this little girl, I should like to carry her +to some hospital and see that all is well with her. I seem to remember +that she belongs to me.” He smiled apologetically at the two watching him, +then stumbled ahead with his burden.</p> + +<p>At the base hospital they gave Sheila O’Leary full credit for the curing +of Bertrand Fauchet, which, of course, she flatly denied. She laid it +entirely to the interference of Fate and a child. But the important thing +is that Bertrand Fauchet left the hospital a sound man—and that Madeline +went with him, each holding fast to the hand of the other.</p> + +<p>“She is mine now,” he said, as he took leave of Sheila. “Le bon Dieu saw +fit to send me in the place of that other papa. Eh, p’tite?” He stroked +the hair back from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> the little face that looked worshipfully up at him. +“It is for us who remember to make these little ones forget. N’est-ce pas, +ma’am’selle? And we are going back to the world together, to find +somewhere the happiness and the great love for Madeline. Adieu.”</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="Chapter_VII" id="Chapter_VII"></a>Chapter VII</h2> +<h3>THE LAD WHO OUTSANG THE STARS</h3> + +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">In</span> the American Military Hospital No. 10 one could always count on Ward +7-A beginning the day with a genuine fanfare of good spirits—that is to +say, ever since that ward had acquired a distinction and personality of +its own. On this particular morning the doors of the wards were open, for +orderlies were scrubbing floors, and Sheila O’Leary in the operating-room +above could catch the words of the third chorus that had rung through the +hospital since the ban of silence had been raised.</p> + +<p class="poem">“Gra-ma-cree ma-cruiskeen, Slainte-geal ma-vour-neen,<br /> +Gra-ma-cree a-coolin bawn, bawn, bawn,<br /> +Oh!”</p> + +<p>As usual, Larry’s crescendo boomed in the lead. How those lads could sing!</p> + +<p>In the regular order of things it was time for dressings; but the regular +order of things<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> was so often broken at No. 10 that it had nearly become a +myth. The operating staff had been steadily at it since eleven the night +before. If nothing more came in, they might be through by eleven now and +the dressings come only two hours late. That would be rare good luck. +Under the spell of the singing the tired backs of surgeons and nurses +straightened unconsciously; cramped muscles seemed to lose some of their +kinks; everybody smiled without knowing it—down to the last of the boys +who were waiting their turn in the corridor outside. The boys had not been +in the hospital long enough to know anything about Ward 7-A, but the +challenge to courage and good spirits in that chorus of voices was too +dominant to be denied, even among the sorest wounded of them. One after +another rallied to it like veterans.</p> + +<p>“Gra-ma-cree ma-cruiskeen bawn,” boomed Larry’s voice to the finish.</p> + +<p>The chief of the Surgical Staff looked at Sheila as she handed him the +sutures he was reaching for. “They’re the best we’ve had yet, eh? Not one +with half a fighting chance, and just listen to the ones who are pulling +through.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>“They’re Irish.” There was a tinge of pride in the nurse’s voice.</p> + +<p>The chief smiled. “It’s like flipping a coin to find out whether you’re +more Irish or American. Sometimes it’s heads, sometimes it’s tails. Which +is it, honestly?”</p> + +<p>“Honestly, both!” Sheila laughed softly. Then the door opened to admit the +last of the stretchers, and she sobered for an instant until she saw the +faces of the boys. She knew why they were smiling, and her eyes shone in +the old luminous, Leerie fashion as she greeted them, each as if he had +been an old friend.</p> + +<p>“There’s a welcome for you. Those lads you hear have gone through what you +are going through, only a lot worse. Listen, and think of that as you go +under. They’ll be singing again in a moment.” And as she slipped the ether +cone over the face of the first, up from Ward 7-A in rollicking cadences +came another chorus:</p> + +<p class="poem">“Wi’ me bundle on me shoulder, sure, there’s not a man that’s bolder—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I am leavin’ dear old Ireland without warnin’.</span><br /> +For I’ve lately took the notion for to cross the briny ocean,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">An’ I’m off for Philadelphia in the mornin’.”</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>The smile on the face of the first boy spread to a grin under its covering +of gauze. “I’m off for Philadelphia, too,” he mumbled, thickly, and the +eyes that looked into Sheila’s for a few last nebulous seconds showed all +the comfortable security of a child’s.</p> + +<p>They were hard at it for another hour, and while Sheila O’Leary’s hands +flew from sterilizer to ether cone, from handing instruments and holding +forceps to tying sutures and packing wounds, her mind was busy with +something that lay far beyond. To this girl, who had come across to do her +bit, life had become a jumble of paradoxes. She had come to give, out of +the bounty of her skill and her womanhood; instead she had received far +more abundantly from the largess of universal brotherhood and sacrifice. +She had come to minister, and she had been ministered unto by every piece +of human wreckage swept across the door-sill of the hospital. She had +thought to dispense life, and to her ever-increasing wonder she had been +given a life so boundless that it reached beyond all previous dreams of +space or time. She was learning what thousands had been learning since the +war began, those who had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> thrown their fortunes into its crucible, and +that is that if anything comes out at all, it comes out in the form of +spirit and not of flesh.</p> + +<p>Back in the old days at the sanitarium she had felt herself bound only to +the problems and emergencies of war. It had never occurred to her then +that in an incredibly short time she would be bothering about matters of +adjustment afterward. With peace already on the horizon, she was troubled +a hundredfold more than she had been when indefinite war was the promise +for the future. From the beginning she had marveled at the buoyancy and +optimism of the men who were focusing their lives within the limits of +each day. Many of them never thought in terms of more than twenty-four +hours; often it was less. They had learned the knack of intensive living. +World-old truths were flashed into their minds like spot-lights; friends +were made and lost in a few hours; eternity was visioned and compassed in +a minute. The last words Jerry Donoghue of Ward 7-A had said before he +went west came back to Sheila with a curious persistence.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>“When all’s said and done, miss, it’s been a grand life—Brave lads for +comrades—a lass who kept faith to the end—a good fight an’ somethin’ +good to fight for—Near five years of it—wi’ perdition grinnin’ ye in the +face an’ the Holy Mother walkin’ at your back—Sure, I might ha’ lived +fifty year in Letterkenny an’ never tasted life half so +plentiful—or—so—sweet.”</p> + +<p>That was the strange part of it; they had all found life “plentiful an’ +sweet”—nurses, surgeons, soldiers alike. They might be homesick, worn out +with the business of fighting and patching up afterward, eternally aching +in body and heart with the long stretches of horror and work with little +sleep and less food, and yet not a handful out of every thousand of them +would have chosen to quit if they could.</p> + +<p>But when the quitting-time came, when war was over, what was going to +happen then? Sheila wondered it about the boys who lay unconscious on +their stretchers, packed in the room about her. She wondered it about the +boys conscious in their cots below. Most of all she wondered it about Ward +7-A. It was going to hurt so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> many to have to look beyond the immediate +day into a procession of numberless days stretching into years and years. +The sudden relaxing from big efforts to little ones, that would hurt, too, +like the uncramping of over-strained muscles. And the being thrown back on +oneself to think, to act, to feel for oneself again—what of that? It was +like dismembering a gigantic machine and scattering the infinitesimal +parts of it broadcast over the earth to function alone. Only many of the +parts would be imperfect, and all would have souls to reckon with.</p> + +<p>But of the puzzle of it one fact stood out grippingly vital to Sheila. No +soul must be thrown out of the melting-pot back into the old accustomed +order of life and be left to feel unfit or unnecessary. There must be a +big, compelling place for every man who came home. Of all the tragedies of +war, she could conceive no greater one than to have these men who had put +no limit to the price they were willing to pay to make the world safe for +democracy sent back useless, to mark time to eternity.</p> + +<p>But who was going to keep this from happening? How were the thousands of +mutilés<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> to be made free of the burden of dependence and toleration? Who +was going to guard them against atrophy of spirit? The nurse gathered up +the last of the instruments and threw them in the sterilizer. As she took +off her apron and wiped the beads of sweat from her face, her chief eyed +her suspiciously.</p> + +<p>“Get your coffee before you touch those dressings in 7-A. Understand? When +did you have your clothes off last?” He growled like a good-natured but +spent old dog.</p> + +<p>The girl gave her uniform a disgusted look. “Pretty bad, isn’t it? I put +it on four—no, five days ago, but I’ve had my shoes off twice.” She laid +an impulsive hand on the chief’s arm. “Promise about the coffee if you’ll +promise to do the dressings with me instead of Captain Griggs. He calls +them the ‘down-and-outers.’ I can’t quite stand for that.”</p> + +<p>“Well, what would you call ’em?”</p> + +<p>“The invincibles,” she declared. “Wouldn’t you?”</p> + +<p>But for all her promise, Sheila O’Leary did not get past the door of 7-A +without putting in her head and calling out a “good morning.” Whereupon +twelve Irish tongues, dripping<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> almost as many brogues, flung it back at +her with a vengeance.</p> + +<p>There were thirteen of them, all told, the remnants of a company of Royal +Irish that had crossed the Scheldt with Haig. As Larry Shea had put it on +the day of their arrival, they “made as grand leavin’s as one could expect +under the circumstances.” The ambulances that had brought them, along with +the additional seven who had gone west, had pivoted wrong at one of the +crossroads, so that the American Military Hospital No. 10 had fallen heir +to them instead of the B. H. T. It is recorded that even the chief showed +consternation when he looked them over, and Larry, catching the look and +being the only man conscious at the time, snorted indignantly:</p> + +<p>“Well, sir, if ye think we’re a mess, ye should have seen the Fritzies we +left behind. Furninst them we’re an ordther of perfectly decent lads.” And +Larry had crumpled up into a grinning unconsciousness.</p> + +<p>It was Larry who led the singing; it was Larry now who, with an eye on the +one silent figure in the ward and another on the nurse in the doorway, +threw a wheedling remark to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> hold her with them a moment “by way of +heartenment to Jamie.” “Wait a bit, miss. Patsy MacLean was just askin’ +were ye a good hand at layin’ a ghost?”</p> + +<p>Before Sheila could answer, Harrigan, an Irish-American orderly, stepped +over the threshold and shook a fist at 7-A.</p> + +<p>“Aw, cut it out. The way this bunch works Miss O’Leary makes me sick. +Don’t cher know she hasn’t been off duty for twenty-four hours? Let her +go, can’t cher?”</p> + +<p>Johnnie O’Neil, from the far end of the room, smiled the smile of a +cherub. “An’ don’t ye know, laddie, that it’s always the saints in heaven +that has the worst sinners on their hands? ’Tis jealous ye are, not being +wicked enough to get a bit more of her attention yerself.”</p> + +<p>Sheila smiled impartially at them both, and with a parting promise of +dressings to come she hurried off. Ward 7-A settled itself to wait for the +worst and the best that the day had to offer. The room was a very small +one, and the thirteen cots barely crowded into it, with space at the foot +for Jamie O’Hara’s wheel-chair to go the length and turn. They<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> had been +kept together by Sheila’s urgent plea that they should be given a ward to +themselves instead of scattering them through the larger wards, and it is +doubtful if in all the war a more quietly merciful act had been executed. +Not one of the thirteen but would have scorned to show any sign of +dependence on the others, yet intuitively the girl had guessed what they +would be able to give one another in the matter of spiritual succor. The +way they continually hectored and teased, matched wits and good humor, as +they had matched strength and daring in the old fighting-days before the +hospital, was meat and drink to the souls struggling for dominance over +mutilated bodies. United, they were men; separated—Sheila had often +shuddered to think what pitiful, pain-tortured beings they might have +been.</p> + +<p>When she returned to the ward the chief was with her, and their combined +arrival brought forth a prolonged, fortissimoed wail shammed forth in good +Gaelic fashion. Larry’s great hairy arm shot out, and a vindictive +forefinger was wagged in the direction of the third cot.</p> + +<p>“Ye’d best begin with Patsy MacLean this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> day. He hasn’t been laid out +first in a fortnight.”</p> + +<p>The others, taking the words from Larry’s tongue, chorused, “Aye, begin +wi’ Patsy, the devil take him!”</p> + +<p>“Why the devil? Wouldn’t Fritzie do as well?” The chief smiled indulgently +upon them all.</p> + +<p>“’Tis a case for the devil, this time. Tell the colonel what you were +putting over us last night,” Michael Kenney, lance-corporal, growled +through an undercurrent of chuckle.</p> + +<p>Patrick MacLean, the color-sergeant, grinned as he reached out a welcoming +hand to both surgeon and nurse. He was a prime favorite with them, as with +his own lads. When pain wrestled for the upper hand, when things went +wrong, moods turned black, or nights stretched interminably long and +unendurable, Patsy could always turn the trick and produce something so +absorbingly interesting or ridiculous that the pain and the long nights +were forgotten. How well Sheila remembered that first time they had +dressed his wounds! The muscles had stood out on his arms like whipcords; +sweat poured<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> down his face. He fainted twice, each time coming round to +drawl out his story in that unforgetable Irish way:</p> + +<p>“We were dthrivin’ them afore us like sheep, all so tame an’ sociable I +was forgettin’ where I was. Somehow the notion took me I was back on the +moorlan’ drivin’ the flocks for my father, when a Fritzie overhead drops a +bomb on our captain.... It spatters the mud in my eyes somethin’ terrible, +an’ when I rubs them clean again the machine-guns were cacklin’ all round +us like a parcel o’ hens layin’ eggs; we’d stumbled on a nest of them. +Holy Pether, I was mad! I was for stickin’ the colors in the muzzle o’ one +o’ their bloody guns, an’ I sings out as I rush ’em, ‘Erin go bragh!’ Then +down I goes. Culmullen, there, comes staggerin’ up. ‘Take the colors,’ +says I. ‘I’ve got no legs to carry ’em on.’ ‘I can’t,’ says he; ‘I’ve got +no arms to shoulder ’em.’... A bit aftherwards I sees Jamie—he’s second +in command—come runnin’ up wild, but his arms an’ legs is still in pairs, +so I shouts afore things go black, ‘The colors, Jamie, ye take the +colors.’ ‘Wish to God, Patsy, I could,’ says he, ‘but I can’t see.’... +Faith, weren’t we a healthy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> lot, miss? An’ we the Royal Irish!” He had +grinned then as he was grinning now.</p> + +<p>Culmullen in the next cot, a schoolmaster from Ballygowan, raised his +head. “Miss O’Leary, Patsy’s the worst liar in Ulster. Ye might keep that +in mind whenever he has anything to tell. If I had had the schooling of +ye, I’d have thrashed the thruth into ye, ye rascal! Will ye kindly lean +over and brush the hair out of my eyes, and if ye tickle my nose this +time, I’ll have Larry thrash ye for me the instant he’s up.”</p> + +<p>The color-sergeant pulled himself over and gently brushed back the +straggling hair. “Such a purty lad!” he murmured, sarcastically. “What’s +an arm or two so long’s the Fritzies didn’t ruin one o’ them handsome +features—nor shorten the length o’ your tongue.”</p> + +<p>“What is it this time, Sergeant?” Sheila spoke coaxingly as she bent to +the dressings.</p> + +<p>“Well, ye know I’ve said from the beginnin’ ’twas no ways natural havin’ +them legs o’ mine twistin’ an’ achin’ same as if they were still hangin’ +onto me. I leave it to both of yez. If they’d been anyways decent legs an’ +considerate o’ the kindness I’ve<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> always shown them, wouldn’t they have +quit pestherin’ me when they took Dutch leave?”</p> + +<p>“Stop moralizin’,” shouted Johnnie O’Neil, the piper from Antrim. “Get +down to the p’int o’ your tale.”</p> + +<p>“It hasn’t any point: it’s flat,” growled the lance-corporal.</p> + +<p>Unembarrassed, Patsy MacLean went on: “I was a-thinkin’ this all over +again last night, a-listenin’ to the ambulances comin’ in, when a breath +o’ wind pushes the door open a bit, an’ in walks, as natural as life, the +ghost o’ them two legs. ’Tis the gospel truth I’m tellin’ ye. They walked +a bit bowlegged, same as they always did, straight through the door an’ +down the ward. An’ the queer thing is they never stopped by Larry’s cot or +Casey Ryan’s—the heathen!—but came right on to me.”</p> + +<p>“Faith, they wouldn’t have had the nerve to stop. The leg Casey lost was +as straight as a hazel wand, same as mine.” Larry snorted contemptuously.</p> + +<p>“The two of yez are jealous.” Patsy lowered his voice to a mock whisper +and confided to the chief and Sheila, “They know they’ll have to be buyin’ +a good pair o’ shoes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> an’ throwin’ the odd away, while I’ll be sayin’ +enough from the shoes I’ll never have to be buyin’ to keep mysel’ in +cigars for the rest o’ my life.”</p> + +<p>“But Patsy’s wondtherin’ can ye lay the ghost, miss?” Timothy Brennan, who +had lost the “cream of his face,” repeated the question Larry had asked a +half-hour before. The rest of the ward tittered expectantly.</p> + +<p>“Let me see—” The Irish blood in her steadied the nurse’s hands, while +she drew her lips into quizzical solemnity and winked at Culmullen over +her shoulder. “I always thought it was restlessness that sent ghosts +walking. Maybe these have come back, looking for their boots.”</p> + +<p>The titter broke into a roar of delight. “Thrue for ye!” shouted +Parley-voo Flynn, pounding the arm of Jamie’s chair with his one fist. +“All ye’ve got to do, Patsy, is to be puttin’ your boots beside your chair +onct more, an’ them legs will scrooch comfortably into them an’ never +haunt ye again. The lass is right, isn’t she, Jamie?”</p> + +<p>Eleven pairs of eyes and an odd one shifted apprehensively from the lad +who was being dressed to the lad in the wheel-chair, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> eyes all +showed varying degrees of trouble, uncertainty, and sorrow. They had a way +of searching Jamie out in this fashion many times a day, while he sat very +still, with eyes bandaged and lips that never flinched but never broke to +a smile.</p> + +<p>Larry shook a hairy fist at Parley-voo and answered the question himself:</p> + +<p>“Of course she’s right! Isn’t she always? An’ who but a heathen would be +doubtin’ the manners of a ghost?”</p> + +<p>“Aye, but where will I be gettin’ the boots?” Patsy made a sour grimace. +“Me own purty ones had Christian burial somewhere back in that tremendous +mud-puddle. Would any gentleman, now, still havin’ two good legs, give me +the loan of his boots for one night? Size eleven, if I don’t disremember.”</p> + +<p>“That’s Teig’s number. Lend him yours, Teig, like a good lad, or we’ll +never be rid o’ them ghosts.” Mat O’Shaughnessy, at the other end of the +line, fairly shook with the depth of his wail.</p> + +<p>Teig Magee chuckled. He had lost an inch or so of back and was waiting the +glad day when they could mend it with an inch or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> so of shin-bone; in the +mean time he was paralyzed. “Say, Docthor, would ye mind reachin’ undther +my pillow an’ fetchin’ them out for me? The lads have a way of forgettin’ +my hands are temporarily engaged. Thank ye. Ye can have them, Patsy, but +ye’ll have to go bail your ghosts won’t up an’ thramp off wi’ them +entirely.”</p> + +<p>It ended by the schoolmaster giving security—a half-crown with a bullet +hole through it. Sheila was appointed custodian, and the boots were placed +beside the color-sergeant’s cot “against the comin’ night.”</p> + +<p>As the chief and Sheila passed on from cot to cot, the spirits of Ward 7-A +never wavered. Johnnie, who had piped the lads into battle and out for +four years, and who daily rejoiced over the fact that Fritzie had shown +the good sense to take a foot instead of a hand, told them that he was in +rare luck now, for there would be time to make wee Johnnie at home the +grandest piper in all of Ireland—an honor he could never have promised +himself before.</p> + +<p>There was “Bertha” Milliken, named for the big gun he had put out of +commission and the gun crew he had captured. He had been given<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> the V. C. +for that. His pet joke was telling how the Fritzies grudged him its +possession by shooting it away on the Scheldt along with a good bit that +was under it. The nurse and surgeon handled “Bertha” very carefully; there +was no knowing just what was going to happen to him. Casey Ryan had lost +the odd of ’most everything the Lord had started him with, as he put it. +An eye, an ear, a lung, and a leg were gone, and he was beating all the +others at getting well. Mat O’Shaughnessy had it in the “vital.” He was +continuously boasting that it was the handiest place of all, and if it +didn’t get him he’d be the only perfect specimen invalided home.</p> + +<p>“Parley-voo,” the only one of them who essayed French, had wounds many but +inconspicuous. He was given to counting a hypothetical fortune that might +be his if the Empire would give him a shilling for every time he had been +hit. Joseph Daly and “Gospel” Smith, the one Methodist, carried head +wounds, while “Granny” Sullivan, the oldest, wisest, and most comforting +of the company, had one smashed hip and a hole through the other, “the +devil of a combination.” Never had the atmosphere of 7-A<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> been keener or +spicier. Jamie alone sat still and silent.</p> + +<p>Jamie was the last to be dressed, and because there was little to do the +chief slipped away and left him to Sheila. As the nurse passed from Mat’s +cot to the wheel-chair, eleven pairs of eyes and an odd one followed her. +A hush fell suddenly on the ward. The lads never intended this should +happen, but somehow, at the same time everyday, the silence gripped them, +and they seemed powerless to stay it. It was “Granny” Sullivan who first +threw it off.</p> + +<p>“’Tis a grand day outside, Jamie. Maybe ye’re feeling the sun, now, comin’ +through the window?”</p> + +<p>The nurse had lifted the bandage from the eyes. There was nothing there +but empty sockets, almost healed. One could hear the quick intake of +breath from the watching twelve, while every face registered an agony it +had scorned to show for its own disablement. But for Jamie, “the singing +lad from Derry” as they lovingly called him, it was different. They could +face their own conditions with amazing jocularity, but they writhed daily +under the torment of Jamie’s.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> They could brave it no better than could +he. For to put eternal darkness on the lad who loved the light, who would +sit spellbound before the play of colors in the east at dawn or the flash +of moonlight across troubled water, who could make a song out of the smile +of a child or the rhythm of flying birds in the sky, that was damnable. An +arch-fiend might have conceived it, but where was God to let it happen? A +crippled Jamie without an arm or a leg was endurable—that cried out for +no blasphemy—but a Jamie without eyes—God in heaven, how could it be!</p> + +<p>The face of the singing lad was the face of a dreamer, as exquisite as a +piece of marble that might have been fashioned by Praxiteles for a sun +god. Since the battle on the Scheldt it had become a white mask, shorn of +all dreams. Almost it might have been a death-mask for the soul of Jamie +O’Hara. It showed no response now when “Granny” spoke; only the lad’s +hands fluttered a moment toward the window, then dropped heavily back into +his lap.</p> + +<p>“Aye, maybe I feel it.” The voice was colorless and tired. “I can’t be +remembering clear sunlight any more. The last days of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> the fighting, smoke +was too thick in the sky, or the rains fell.”</p> + +<p>Eleven pairs of eyes and one odd one cast about for some inspiration. +“Sure, think o’ somethin’ pleasanter nor cannon smoke an’ rain. Think +o’—” “Granny” floundered for a moment, then gave up in despair.</p> + +<p>“That’s all I see when I look up. When I look down, it’s worse—an +everlasting earth, covered with mud and dying men!” Jamie shivered.</p> + +<p>Larry struggled out of his torment. “I say, Jamie, don’t ye mind the song +ye were makin’ for us the day we fell back from Cambrai? ’Twas an Irish +one, full o’ the sun an’ the singin’ birds of Donegal. Wi’ the Fritzies +risin’ like a murdtherous tide behind us, ’twas all that kept the heart in +us that day. Ye say it for Miss O’Leary. Sure, ye’ve never said a song for +her yet.”</p> + +<p>Jamie shook his head. “I’m sorry, lad; I’ve lost it. I was making so many +songs those days—ye couldn’t be expecting a body to carry them all about +in his head. Now could ye?” The lips tried bravely to smile, and failed +again.</p> + +<p>But Larry grinned triumphantly. “Sure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> ‘Granny’ has it wrote down. He +showed it to me once. Fetch it, ‘Granny,’ an’ let Jamie be re—” He broke +off, aghast; the lads about him were staring in absolute horror. Only the +singing lad showed nothing. He might not have heard, or, hearing, the +words were meaningless.</p> + +<p>So Sheila took matters into her own hands. She covered the eyes with fresh +gauze, wrapped Jamie up, and bundled him out in his chair to Harrigan with +the remark that the day was too fine to miss and there was more of it +outside the hospital than in. She watched until she had seen Harrigan take +him to a sunny, wind-sheltered corner of the gardens, and then she came +back to 7-A. She was thinking of Peter Brooks, her man at the front, and +she was trying to fathom with all her heart what manner of healing she +would give had Peter come back to her as Jamie O’Hara had come. She closed +the door of the ward behind her and faced the twelve.</p> + +<p>“Lads, what are we going to do for Jamie?”</p> + +<p>Larry groaned out loud. It was the first luxury of expression he had +indulged in since Jamie had been wheeled out. “Aye, what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> are we goin’ to +do? That’s what every man of us has been askin’ himself since—since he knew.”</p> + +<p>“We act like a crowd o’ half-wits, a-thryin’ to boost his spirits a bit, +an’ all the time he grows whiter an’ quieter.” Patsy turned his head away; +his lips were twitching.</p> + +<p>“Aye, that’s God’s truth.” “Bertha’s” hoarse croak was heavy with despair. +“Ye can see for yourself, miss, it’s noways nat’ral for Jamie—that’s the +worst of it. It’s been Jamie, just, that always put heart back in us when +things went blackest. Wasn’t it him that made it easy goin’ for them that +went west? Can one of us mind the time he wasn’t ready with a song to +fetch us over the top, or through the mud—or straight to death, if them +was the orders? No matter how loud the guns screeched, we could always +hear Jamie above them.”</p> + +<p>“We could hear him when we couldn’t have heard another sound,” Culmullen +mumbled.</p> + +<p>“Gospel” Smith raised a bandaged head and leveled piercing eyes at Sheila. +“You know what the Gospel says about the stars singing in the morning—all +together like? Well, Jamie was the lad who could outsing them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> You know +how it feels at that gray, creepy hour o’ dawn, when a man’s heart jumps +to his throat and sticks there, and his hands shake like a girl’s? Often’s +the time we’d be waiting orders to attack just like that. The stars might +have shouted themselves clear o’ the sky, for all the good they’d have +done us; but Jamie was different. He’d make us a couplet or a verse to +sing low under our breath, something you could put your teeth into. And +when the orders came our hearts were always back where the Lord had put +them.”</p> + +<p>“Granny” Sullivan plucked nervously at his blanket. “An’ now, when we want +to hearten him, we’re hurtin’ instead. Seems as if the devil took hold of +our tongues an’ spilled the wrong words off.”</p> + +<p>“Shall I tell you what I would try to do, if I were one of you Irish lads +who had fought with him?” Sheila’s face was as drawn as any of the twelve.</p> + +<p>“In God’s name tell us!” Johnnie, the piper, spoke as reverently as if he +were at mass.</p> + +<p>“You heard what he said just now about seeing nothing but mud and dying +men?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> Well, that’s the trouble. He can’t see any longer things he loves, +the things he has always carried in his heart. All the beautiful memories +have been lost, and all he has left are the horrors of those last days. +He’s got nothing left to make into songs any more. Don’t you see? You’ve +got to bring that back to him, that power to see—here.” The girl’s hand +pressed her heart.</p> + +<p>“Aye, but how?” Patsy asked it breathlessly.</p> + +<p>“Bring him back his memories—memories of Ireland, of the things he loved +best to sing about. You have eyes; make him see.”</p> + +<p>A hush fell on Ward 7-A. Then Timothy Brennan muttered as a man alone: +“’Tis the words of a woman. God’s blessin’ on her!”</p> + +<p>All through the day there rang through Sheila’s ears the last words Jamie +had said to her that morning. He had turned his face back, as Harrigan had +wheeled him away, to answer her “All right, Jamie?” with “As right as ever +I’ll be. Do ye know, the O’Haras are famous for their long living? My +grandfather lived to be ninety-eight, and his father to be over a hundred. +That leaves me seventy-five years, maybe. Seventy-five<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> years! And already +I’m fearin’ the length of a day.” She was still hearing them when she came +back to the ward at day’s end to find Jamie in his old accustomed place by +the window. His face was as masklike as ever, and Larry was talking:</p> + +<p>“Sure, I mind often an’ often how the neighbors used to tell me if I’d lie +asleep with my ear to a fairy rath I’d be hearin’ their music an’ seein’ +their dancin’. But I never did. But I saw a sight as grand, the flight o’ +the skylark at ring-o’-day. Many’s the time I’ve seen them leave the marsh +an’ go liltin’ into the blue.”</p> + +<p>“And the lilting!” Culmullen closed his eyes the better to recall it. “I +mind the last time I heard one. The sky was turned orange, and the lough +turned gold. The marsh was glistening with mist, and out of the reeds +where her nest was she flew. It was like a feathered bundle of song thrown +skyward.”</p> + +<p>“Aye, what a song!” Johnnie, the piper, spoke with ecstasy. “Hark! I can +make it.” He puckered his lips, and through them came the sweet, lilting +notes of the lark’s matin song.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>“Make it again.” Jamie was leaning forward in his chair, his hands +gripping the arms.</p> + +<p>Again the piper whistled it through, and then again and again. A smile +brushed Jamie’s lips, and the others, watching, breathless, saw.</p> + +<p>“What is it?” asked “Granny,” softly.</p> + +<p>“Naught. Only for the moment I was thinking I could be smelling the dew on +the bogs, yonder. Can ye pipe for the blackbirds, Johnnie?”</p> + +<p>And Johnnie piped.</p> + +<p>So a new order of things was established in Ward 7-A, and as heretofore +the lads had vied in witty derision of their calamities they vied now with +one another in telling tales of Ireland. Each marshaled forth his dearest, +greenest memory, clothed in its best, to fill the ears and heart of Jamie +O’Hara. Sometimes he smiled, and then there was a great, silent rejoicing +among the twelve; sometimes he asked for more, and then tongues tripped +over one another in mad effort to furnish forth a memory more wonderful +than all that had gone before. But more often he sat still and white, as +if he heard nothing. And in the midst of it all, as the lads drew each +day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> nearer to health, Sheila noted a new uneasiness among them. It was +Larry who spoke the trouble while the nurse was doing his dressings. He +whispered it, so the others should not hear.</p> + +<p>“By rights we don’t belong here. Well, they’ll be movin’ us soon as we’re +mended, won’t they?”</p> + +<p>The nurse nodded.</p> + +<p>“Invalided home. Ye know what that means?”</p> + +<p>Again the nurse nodded.</p> + +<p>“Mind ye, there’s been never a word dropped atween us, but we’re all +fearin’ it like—” Larry rubbed his sleeve over his mouth twice before he +went on. “While we’ve got Jamie to think about, we can manage, but when +he’s packed off somewheres—to learn readin’ an’ writin’ for the +blind—an’ we’re scattered to the four winds o’ Ireland, we’ll be +realizin’ for the first time what we are, just. Then what are we goin’ to +do? I ask ye it honest, miss.”</p> + +<p>And honestly Sheila answered, “I don’t know.”</p> + +<p>A day later “Granny” whispered over his dressings: “Faith there’s a shadow +creeping<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> over the sill. Can’t ye be feeling it?” And the color-sergeant’s +spirits failed to rise that day at all.</p> + +<p>Yet for all their fears the inevitable day came upon them unawares and +caught them, as you might say, red-handed. Sheila had stolen a half-hour +from rest and was sitting with them, listening to Casey Ryan, the Galway +lad, tell of the fishing in Kilkieran Bay.</p> + +<p>Larry took the words out of his mouth. “’Twill be the proud day for us all +when we cast our eyes on Irish wather again, whether ’tis in Dublin Bay or +off the Skerries.”</p> + +<p>“Aye, and smelling the thorn bloom and hearing the throstles sing!” +“Granny’s” rejoicing followed on the heels of Larry’s, while he shook his +fist at him in warning.</p> + +<p>Larry threw a helpless look at Jamie and sank back on his pillow, while +Patsy roared his ultimatum: “I’d a deal sight rather hear a throstle sing +than see all the bloody wather in the world. Larry’s fair mad about wather +ever since he went dirty for a fortnight at Vimy.”</p> + +<p>“Sure, the thing I’m most wantin’,” croaked “Bertha,” “is to hear the wind +in the heather again, deep o’ the night. There<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> isn’t a sweeter sound than +that, so soft an’ croony-like.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, an’ I’ll be wantin’ to hear the old cracked voice o’ Biddy Donoghue +callin’ cockles at the Antrim fair. Faith, she’s worth thravelin’ far to +be hearin’. An’ think o’ gettin’ your tooth on a live cockle!” Johnnie +moistened his lips in anticipation as he broke forth in a falsetto:</p> + +<p> +“Cockles—good cockles—here’s some for your dad,<br /> +An’ some for your lassie—an’ more for your lad.”<br /> +</p> + +<p>Amid the appreciative chuckle of the listeners, the door of Ward 7-A +opened and the chief stood on the threshold. He smiled as a man may when +he has a hurting thing to do and grudges the doing of it. He saluted the +remnants of Company—of the Royal Irish:</p> + +<p>“Orders, lads. You’ll be leaving to-morrow for—Blighty.”</p> + +<p>There was nothing but silence, a silence of agony and apprehension, until +Patsy whispered, “Leavin’ <i>together</i>, sir?”</p> + +<p>“I—hope so.”</p> + +<p>“Thravelin’—the same?” It was Timothy Brennan this time.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>“Will we be afther makin’ the same hospital yondther—do ye think?” It +took all Larry’s fighting soul to keep his voice steady.</p> + +<p>“I—It isn’t likely.”</p> + +<p>“Thank ye, sir.”</p> + +<p>That was all. The chief left, and Sheila sat on in the stillness of Ward +7-A, wondering wherein lay the value of theories when in the face of the +first crucial need one sat stunned and helpless. The mask of good spirits +had dropped from the lads like a camouflaged screen; behind it showed the +naked, bleeding souls of twelve terror-stricken men. For Jamie’s mask was +still upon him. If the orders had brought any added misery to him, no one +could have told.</p> + +<p>As Sheila looked into their faces and saw all that was written there, she +gripped her hands behind her and tried to tell them what she had thought +out so clearly in the operating-room days and days before. But the message +she had thought was hers to give had somehow become meaningless. What +guarantee had she to make that their lives would go on being vital, +necessary to the big scheme of humanity? How could she promise that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> out +of their share in the war and the price they had paid would be wrought +something so fine, so strong and eternal, that the years ahead must needs +hold plenty for their hearts and souls? She could not get beyond the +realization that it was all only theory, the theory of one glowingly +healthy mind in a sound body. If such a promise could be given at all, it +must not come from such as she; if it was to bear faith, it must be spoken +by one who had gone through the crucible as they had gone through—and +come out even as they had come.</p> + +<p>She looked at Jamie. If Jamie had only had eyes to catch the meaning of +the thing she was trying to say! If he who had sung courage into their +hearts in the old days could sing it once again! A message from Jamie +would bring it home.</p> + +<p>But there was nothing in that blank, white face Sheila could reach. He +seemed as he had seemed from the beginning, a soul apart, so wrapped in +its own despair that no human cry of need could shake it free. In +desperation she looked at Larry. His eyes were closed; his face had gone +almost as white as Jamie’s. Patsy was gazing at the ceiling;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> the veins on +his arms stood out as they had on that first day when he had fainted twice +from the pain of his dressing. Down the line of cots the nurse’s eyes +traveled, and back again. Every lad was past speaking for another; each +lay transfixed with his own personal fear.</p> + +<p>The minutes seemed intolerable. The silence grew heavy with so much +muffling of despair. Sheila found herself praying that the men would +groan, cry out, curse, anything to break the ghastly hush. Then suddenly +“Bertha” propped himself as best he could on an elbow and croaked: “For +the love of Mary, miss, can’t ye cram us with morphine the night? ’Twould +save the British Empire a few shillin’s’ expense and them at home a deal +o’ misery.”</p> + +<p>And the color-sergeant choked out, “Aye, in God’s mercy send us west, +along wi’ them lucky seven that has gone already!”</p> + +<p>Without knowing why she did it, Sheila reached over and gripped one of +Jamie’s hands. “Help, can’t you?” she whispered. The late afternoon sun +was shining through the window back of him. The glory of it was full on +his face, so that every lad in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> ward saw plainly the smile that crept +into the lips, a tender, whimsical smile that belonged to the Jamie of +old. And the deep, vibrating voice was the voice of the Jamie of fighting +days.</p> + +<p>“Patsy, ye rascal! I’m thinking it was like yourself to come breaking into +the first song I’ve had on my lips in a month. You’ve nearly ruined it for +me, lad.”</p> + +<p>Amazement, incredulity, thanksgiving swept over the faces like puffs of +wind over young wheat. Unnoticed, Sheila turned to the window and wept a +scattering of tears that could no longer be held back. Jamie pulled +himself out of the wheel-chair and found his way down the space at the +foot of the cots to the door. He was very straight, and his head was high.</p> + +<p>“Just a minute, lads.” He dug his hands deep into his pockets. “Before I +give ye the song I’ve made for ye, there’s something I have to be saying +first. Miss O’Leary was right when she said a man has more than one pair +of eyes to see with. He can see grand with his heart—if he’s shown the +way. That’s what I have to thank ye for this day, the wiping of my memory +clean of those last<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> days, and the showing me how to see anew. Ye’ve given +Ireland back to me with her lark songs, her blue, dancing water, her +wind-brushed heather like a purple sea. Ye’ve made the world beautiful for +me again, and ye’ve given me the heart to sing.”</p> + +<p>He stopped a minute and smiled again. “I was thinking all this when the +chief came in, and after that I was so busy with the song that sprang into +my mind that I came near forgetting the lot o’ ye. If that rascal Patsy +hadn’t interrupted me, faith, I might have made the song longer.”</p> + +<p>Sheila turned back from the window. There was a grin on the face of every +lad, and on the face of Jamie was the look of a man who had found his +dreams again. The song being new to his tongue, he gave it slowly:</p> + +<p class="poem">“They say the earth’s a bit shot up—well, we can say the same,<br /> +But, praise to every lad that’s fought, the scars they show no shame.<br /> +And for those who have prayed for us—why, here’s an end to tears.<br /> +Sure, God can do much healing in the next handful of years.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span><br /> +“So, Johnnie, set your chanter and blow your pipes full strong,<br /> +And, Larry, raise your voice again and lead our marching song.<br /> +Let Mac unfurl the colors—till they sweep yon crimson west,<br /> +For we’re still the Royal Irish, a-fighting with the best.”</p> + +<p>And that is precisely the way they went when they left the American +Military Hospital No. 10 the next morning. The color-sergeant led. Jamie +walked beside the stretcher to give a hand with the staff. Johnnie sat +bolt upright, bolstered with many pillows, to enable him to get a firm +grip on the pipes, and he skirled the “Shule Aroon” as he had never +skirled before. Larry’s voice again boomed in the lead, and every man in +the hospital that had breath to spare cheered them as they passed. And for +every one who saw or heard the going of the Royal Irish, that day, was +left behind a memory green enough to last till the end of time.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="Chapter_VIII" id="Chapter_VIII"></a>Chapter VIII</h2> +<h3>INTO HER OWN</h3> + +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">The</span> last big drive was on. Somewhere on the road between what had been the +line of defense and what was the line of farthest advance rumbled a +hospital camion with its nose to the war trail like an old dog on a fresh +scent. In the camion sat Sheila O’Leary, late of the old San and later yet +of the American Military Hospital No. 10. She was in field uniform; a pair +of the chief’s own boots were strapped over two pairs of woolen stockings. +She was contemplating those boots now with a smile of rare contentment +that showed its inwardness even in the gray light of early morning.</p> + +<p>“Never thought I should step into the shoes of a great surgeon. They ought +to pass me through to the front if everything else fails, don’t you +think?”</p> + +<p>The chief eyed her quizzically. “They’ll carry you as far as you’ll care +to go and for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> as long as you’ll stand. What’s troubling me is what your +man will say when he knows?”</p> + +<p>“Who—Peter?” Sheila’s smile deepened. “He’ll understand; he’ll be glad. +Something both of us will remember always, something big to share. Oh, I +know it’s going to be life and death, heaven and hell, rolled into a +minute, but I wouldn’t be missing this chance—” She broke off suddenly, +and when she spoke again there was a great reverence in her voice. “I feel +as the littlest angel might have felt if God had asked him to be at the +Creation.”</p> + +<p>“Rather different, this.” Griggs, the chief’s assistant, spoke. There were +just the three of them in the ambulance.</p> + +<p>“Not so very. It’s another big primal happening, the hurling together of +elemental things and impulses and watching something more solid and +lasting come out. A new heaven and a new earth.”</p> + +<p>“What we see coming out won’t be so solid or so lasting. We may not be +ourselves.” Griggs was a pessimist, a heroic one, with an eye ever keen +for the grimmest and most disappointing in life and a courage to meet it +squarely.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>The chief’s glance brushed him on its way to the nurse; Griggs’s share of +it was plainly commiserating. “And I say, blessed be those who shall +inherit it. But, girl, this doesn’t settle the question of your man. I’ve +had to duck orders a bit to bring you along. Women aren’t wanted at the +front. He may hold it up stiff against me for it.”</p> + +<p>“But I can help. Any woman who can stand it will be needed. They shouldn’t +bar us out. That’s all Peter’ll think about. Don’t worry.”</p> + +<p>There was no question in the girl’s mind as to the wisdom or right in her +coming—or Peter’s verdict in the matter. He would not fuss over this +plunge into danger any more than he had misunderstood her giving away her +wedding back at the old San and coming over at the eleventh hour. The last +words Peter had said when he left her for the front came back with +absolute distinctness:</p> + +<p>“Whatever happens, do what you think best, go where you feel you must go. +Don’t bungle your instincts. I’d trust them next to God’s own.”</p> + +<p>No, Peter Brooks would have been the last person to deny her this chance, +and so all was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> well. She was wondering now if by some rare good luck she +might stumble on Peter at the front. She had not seen him since they +separated the day after their arrival in France. A few penciled +hieroglyphics had come from time to time telling her all was well with +him. She had written when she could and when she knew enough of an address +to risk a letter reaching him. But Peter, after the manner of all +correspondents, was like Hamlet’s ghost—here, there, and gone; and Sheila +had no way of knowing if her letters had ever reached him.</p> + +<p>For weeks it had seemed to the girl that her love had lain dormant, hushed +under the pressure of work. So vital and eternal were both love and +happiness that in her zeal for perfect, impersonal service she had thrust +them both out of sight, as one might put seeds away in the dark to wait +until planting-time, assured of their fulfilment when the time came. But +now in the lull between the work at the hospital and the work that would +soon claim her again she discovered that in some inexplicable manner love +would no longer be shut out. She was sick for the man she loved.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>A funny little wistful droop took Sheila’s lips, and her chin quivered for +an instant. It was so unlike the girl that the chief, seeing, reached +across and laid a hand on her knee.</p> + +<p>“What is it? Not sorry?”</p> + +<p>“Never. But I was thinking how pleasantly easy it might have been to stay +behind at the old San. Peter and I’d be climbing that mythical hilltop of +ours, with a home of our own at the end of the climb—if we’d stayed +behind.”</p> + +<p>“Well, why didn’t you?”</p> + +<p>The nurse laughed softly. Griggs volunteered to answer for her.</p> + +<p>“Because you were a fool, like a lot of the rest of us.”</p> + +<p>“Because—oh, because of that queer something inside us all that pries us +away from our determinations just to be contented and happy all our lives +and hustles us somewhere to do something for somebody else. Remember in +the old fairy-tales they were always cleaning the world of dragons or +giants or chimeras before they married and lived happy ever after.”</p> + +<p>“Bosh! Remember that it’s only in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> fairy-tales that the giants or the +monsters don’t generally get you, and you get an epitaph instead of a +wedding. You romantic idealists make me sick,” and Griggs snarled openly.</p> + +<p>Their mobile unit was held up that day in a little ruined city. Only one +other dressing-station was there, and the wounded were passing through so +fast and so wounded that many could not go on. So they set up another +dressing-station and worked through the night until the stars went out and +their orders came to hurry on. They caught two hours’ sleep and by noon of +another day they were as close to the front as a hospital unit could go.</p> + +<p>A dugout had been portioned out to them, and while orderlies brought in +their equipment and the surgeons were coupling up lights and sterilizer, +Sheila started to get a hot meal in two sterilizing basins. The nurse was +just drawing in her first breath of real war. Before she had time to +exhale it a despatch-bearer climbed down into the dugout and handed an +order to the chief. It was from headquarters, and brief. The division did +not intend to have any woman’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> name on its casualty list. Sheila was to +be returned at once. The bearer added the information that an ambulance +was returning with wounded; she could take it.</p> + +<p>The chief had never seen the nurse turn so white. Her eyes spoke the +appeal her lips refused to make. He tried to put something into words to +make it easier for her, but gave it up in final despair. What was there to +say? In silence the girl put on her trench coat, jammed on her hat, and +was gone. For the first kilometer her senses were too numbed to allow for +much thinking. Mechanically she passed her canteen to one of the wounded, +readjusted a blanket over another. It was not until the division turned +loose its first barrage that day that she woke up to what was happening to +her. She was going back; she was not going to have her chance.</p> + +<p>The noise was terrific. It drowned everything but the mutinous hammerings +of her own heart. In the flash of an eye she changed from the Sheila +O’Leary of civilized production to a savage, primitive woman. She had but +one dominating instinct, to stand by the male of her tribe, to succor +him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> fight with him, die with him. It seemed as futile a thing to try to +stay this impulse as to try to put out the burning of a prairie when the +wind blows.</p> + +<p>The ambulance stopped with a jerk. Something was wrong with the engine. +The driver climbed down and threw back the hood, and, unnoticed, the nurse +slipped down and passed him. When he had finished his tinkering, Sheila +was fifty rods away across the meadow.</p> + +<p>“Here, you, you come back!” shouted the driver.</p> + +<p>For answer Sheila doubled her speed.</p> + +<p>The driver watched her, uncertain what to do. A shell whizzed from beyond +the barrage and burst a hundred yards from the nurse. The shock threw her, +but she was up in an instant, her course changed toward some deserted +trenches. The driver hesitated no longer. He climbed back and started the +engine.</p> + +<p>“No use tacklin’ them kind,” he remarked to the empty seat beside him. +“She’ll get there or she won’t—but she won’t turn back.”</p> + +<p>It was nightfall when Sheila came up with what she had chosen to call “her +division.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> She intended to possess it in spite of the commander. An +outpost sentry challenged what he thought a wraith. His tongue fumbled the +words, “Oh, Gawd! it’s a woman!”</p> + +<p>“Yes. Will you pass her? Lots to do.”</p> + +<p>He looked at the red cross on her arm and smiled foolishly. “You bet there +is! Sure I’ll pass you.”</p> + +<p>She came up with the first battalion, bivouacked under a shell-riven +ridge.</p> + +<p>“A woman!” The first boy whispered it, and the exclamation rippled on to +the next and the next like wind in dry leaves. Remembering the exodus of +the morning, the nurse knew if she was to stay she must prove her need and +prove it quickly. Her voice was as business-like as in the old San days.</p> + +<p>“Dressing-station? Company’s surgeon? Wounded? Doesn’t matter which, only +get me some work.”</p> + +<p>A hand slipped out of the darkness and caught her elbow. “This way, lady,” +and she was drawn along the protecting shelter of the ridge. After rods of +stumbling she stumbled down irrational stairs into the same dugout she had +left that morning. She was almost as surprised as the two surgeons.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>“You’re +a fool,” muttered Griggs. “Wait till they order me back. I’ll not +be crying for purgatory twice.”</p> + +<p>The chief smiled. “I reckon you got that S O S call I’ve been sending out +all day. We need help like sixty. Bichloride’s under that basin. We’ll be +ready for you when you’ve washed up. Night ahead—” His words trailed off +into an incoherent chuckling. He was wondering how the girl had managed +it. He was wondering more what the command would do when it found out. In +the mean time he was glorying in her courage; he would see she got full +measure of the work that had claimed her in spite of orders, while he +silently thanked a merciful God for providing her.</p> + +<p>No one questioned her right to be there that night. Wounded poured in, +flooded the dugout to capacity, were cared for, carried away, and more +flooded again. It was daybreak before a lull came, and then there were +orders to be ready to follow the battalion in an hour. So they ate a +snatch, packed, and rolled on in the wake of the Allies’ conquest.</p> + +<p>Again it was nightfall before they caught up with their regiment. Even to +eyes as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> inexperienced as theirs it was easy to see it had been factored +and factored again, and not the half of it was standing. They found a +couple of regimental surgeons floundering through a sea of wounded. The +nurse had to bite her lips to keep back the cry of horror over the +apparent hopelessness of the task that lay before them. So many—and so +few hands to do it all!</p> + +<p>A shout went up from the men who had come through whole, when they saw +her. They were wet, covered with mud, aching in every joint and sinew, but +they forgot it all in their joyful pride over the fact that the nurse was +standing by.</p> + +<p>“Gosh durn it, it’s our girl!”</p> + +<p>“Stuck fast to the old bat. Whoopee!”</p> + +<p>“At-a-boy! Three cheers for the pluckiest girl on the front—our girl!” +and a young giant led the cheering that sprang as one yell from those +husky throats.</p> + +<p>“She’s all right—our girl’s all right—’rah-’rah-’rah!”</p> + +<p>Sheila’s own voice was too husky to more than whisper, as she slipped +behind the giant, “Tell them my thanks and—good luck.”</p> + +<p>“You bet I will.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>From that instant there was no more helplessness in the feelings of Sheila +O’Leary. She felt empowered to move mountains, to make new a mangled heap +of boys. As she joined the chief she stopped to see how it was with him. +His eyes met hers, and in the flash she read there the same fighting faith +that was in her own heart. He patted her shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Didn’t think you’d funk. Nothing like team-work when you’re up against +it. Keeps you believing in the divinity of man, eh?”</p> + +<p>And who can tell if at times like these the power of the Nazarene does not +pass on to those who go fearlessly forth to minister in the face of death! +It would not be so strange if he had passed over innumerable battle-fields +and so anointed those who had come to succor that their task was made +easier and their burden at least bearable.</p> + +<p>There was no shelter for any of them that night. They worked in the open, +and volunteers came from the ranks to do what they could. The surgeons +would have scorned them, but the nurse mustered in a score or more to keep +the fires under the kettles burning, to hold supplies and lanterns, to +make<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> coffee when the sterilizing basins could be surrendered for the +purpose; and she showed those with pocket-knives how to cut away the +blood-soaked clothing. Caked with mud herself and desperately hungry, she +dressed and comforted as she went. The scene was ghastly—Verestchagin +might have painted it—but Sheila saw none of it. It was for her a time +exalted, even for those she helped to die. There was no sting in this +death. As she passed on and on in the darkness the space about her seemed +filled with the shadowy forms of those whom God was mustering out, +peacefully, gloriously waiting His command to march into a land of full +promise. So acutely did she feel this that a prayer rose to her lips and +stayed there, mute, half through the night, that some time she might be +given the chance to make this clear for those who mourned at home, to make +them feel that death, here, held no sting.</p> + +<p>In the midst of it Sheila felt a heavy hand laid on her arm, and turned to +look into the face of the commander.</p> + +<p>“Are you the nurse I ordered back two days ago?”</p> + +<p>“I believe so.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>“Who ordered you back again?”</p> + +<p>“No one.”</p> + +<p>“How did you come?”</p> + +<p>The girl laughed softly. She could not resist the memory of that flight. +“Engine went wrong and I—beat it. Don’t blame the driver; he did his best +to obey orders. I joined the division last night and came on with my +chief.”</p> + +<p>“So there’s no use in ordering you back?”</p> + +<p>“None in the least—that is, not so long as the boys are coming in like +this.”</p> + +<p>“How long can you stand it?”</p> + +<p>“As long as they can, sir.” And then without rhyme or reason tears sprang +into the nurse’s eyes, to her great mortification and terror. That would +probably finish her; a woman who cried had no place at the front, and the +general would dismiss her promptly and with scorn.</p> + +<p>But he did not. The hand that had touched her arm reached out and gripped +her hand. She caught a whimsical smile brushing his lips in the dark.</p> + +<p>“Good night. When you want your discharge, I’ll sign it.”</p> + +<p>He went as swiftly and silently as he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> come. The nurse turned back to +her work with a sigh of relief. The regiment was hers officially now.</p> + +<p>The next day they made another little town. So quickly and unexpectedly +had the enemy been forced to evacuate it that there had been no time to +destroy or pillage, and the shells had somehow passed it by. The town was +full of liberated French—the young and very old—who crowded the streets +and shouted their welcome as the troops passed through. The chapel was +flung open to receive the wounded, and the hospital unit was installed +therein.</p> + +<p>As Sheila O’Leary crossed the threshold of the little church a strange +feeling sprang at her, so that her throat went dry and her heart almost +stopped beating. It was as if something apart from her and yet not apart +had spoken and said: “Here is where the big moment of your life will be +staged. Whatever matters for all time will happen here, and what has gone +before—the San, the hospital, everything you have felt, striven for, +believed in, and trusted—all that is but a prologue. The real part of +your life is just beginning—or—”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>Griggs broke the terror that was clutching at her. “What’s the matter? +Don’t you know there’s a war going on and about a million wounded coming +in? There are a few hundred of them up there, lying round under the images +of the saints. The saints may bless ’em, but they won’t dress ’em. The +chief’s growling for you. Come along!”</p> + +<p>For once she was grateful to the pessimist. She tried to brush the +strangeness away as she hurried down the aisle, but it clung in spite of +her. And at the altar more strangeness confronted her. A slightly wounded +lad suddenly reached out a hand holding a crumpled paper.</p> + +<p>“Guess you’re Miss O’Leary, ain’t you? He said there wasn’t much of a +chance, but what you don’t expect over here is what you get. You know?”</p> + +<p>The incoherency was lost on Sheila. She took the crumpled paper +wonderingly and found it covered with Peter’s scribbled hieroglyphics:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Beloved</span>:</p> + +<p>The boys have been telling me about you—to think you’re really with +us and standing by! It may bring its dole of horror—bound to—we all +have our turn at it. If it comes, hold to your courage and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>take deep +hold of that wonder-soul of yours; that will steady you. And +remember, there is peace coming, and home—yours and mine. Close your +eyes when the sights get too bad, and you’ll see that blessed house +of ours on the hilltop you’ve chosen; you’ll see the little lamp +shining us good cheer. Think of that. I’m with the other wing now, +but any day I may be shifted to yours. Until then,</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 8em;">Yours,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 12em;">“P. B.”</span></p></div> + +<p>The nurse thrust the paper into the front of her uniform, shook the hand +that had brought it to her, and passed up the steps to the work that was +waiting for her. The first day passed like a dream. Guns boomed, shells +screeched their way overhead and landed somewhere. Wounded came and went. +Many died, and a white-haired, tottering old sexton helped to carry them +away. The old palsied <i>abbé</i> came and chanted prayers for the dying, and +some one played a “<i>Dies Iræ</i>” on the little organ. Old French mothers +stole in timorously and offered their services, the service of their hands +and emptied hearts. When they found they might help they were pathetically +grateful, fluttering down between the aisles of wounded like souls with a +day’s reprieve from purgatory. They were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> finding panacea for their +bereavement in this care of the sons of other mothers. And as they passed +Sheila, in broken sentences, almost inarticulate, they told their sorrow:</p> + +<p>“Six—all gone, ma’m’selle.”</p> + +<p>“Jean, François, Paul, and Victor—Victor the last—he fell two months +ago.”</p> + +<p>“Four sons and four daughters—a rich legacy from my dead husband, +ma’m’selle. And I have paid it back—soul by soul—all—he has them all +now.”</p> + +<p>So they mourned as they went their way of tender service, the words +dropping unconsciously from their quivering old lips. A few there were who +stood apart, the envied mothers with hope. Sheila learned who they were +almost from the beginning. Each had a son somewhere not reported. Old +Madame d’Arcy whispered about it as she bathed the face of the boy who +looked so much like her own.</p> + +<p>“Of course, ma’m’selle, my Lucien may be—I have not heard from him in +many months. It is not for me to hope too much. But I think—yes, I think, +ma’m’selle, he will come home to me when the war is over.”</p> + +<p>And Madame Simone, who brought fresh<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> black coffee and little cakes for +those who could eat them, trembled with the gladness of ministering to the +boys who were fighting with hers for France. “I had almost ceased to pray +when the Americans came, but now—ah, ma’m’selle, now there is hope again +in this withered breast. I even dream now of mon p’tit—the youngest of +them all. I feel the good God is sparing him for me.”</p> + +<p>And old Isabelle, who came to scrub the floor and clean, muttered, as she +bent her willing back to the labor: “Moi, that is what I say, too. The +Lord will send my Jacques home to comfort my old age.”</p> + +<p>As Sheila listened, it epitomized for her the tragedy of the mothers of +France, this antiphonal chorus of the mothers who had lost all and those +who had yet one son left. To the girl’s mind there came in almost cruel +contrast that chorus of Maeterlinck’s mothers raised in rapturous +expectancy to the unborn; she knew she was hearing now the agonized +antithesis of it. Throughout the first day it rang incessantly, until she +could have hummed the haunting melody of it. Then night came. The patches +of reds and greens and blues that had sifted through the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> stained-glass +window in the chancel and played all day in grotesque patches on the white +cheeks of the wounded faded alike to gray, and the nurse lit the tall wax +candles on the altar that the work might go on without stopping.</p> + +<p>The next day—and the next—passed much the same. There was no end to the +wounded. Griggs fainted twice the second day, and the chief and Sheila +carried the work alone for a few hours. Each of them was acutely conscious +of the strain on the other and did what he and she could to ease the +tension. For the girl her greatest comfort was in the scrap of paper +crumpled over her breast. It told her Peter was near, coming to her soon. +It seemed to transmit some of his strength and optimism. There were +moments when, but for his reassurance, the girl would have doubted every +normal, happy phase of life and acknowledged only the unending torture and +renunciation. Sometimes the horror seemed to wrap them in like an +impenetrable fog. As for the chief, it took every ounce of will and sanity +to keep him going, and he wondered how the girl beside him could brave it +through without a whimper.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>Always about them roared the great guns like the last booming of a +judgment day, and under that noise the moaning chorus of the French +mothers. When the strain reached the breaking-point Sheila closed her eyes +and looked for the light on the hilltop that Peter had promised would be +there—and there it always was. Moreover, she could feel Peter’s vital +presence and the marvelous reality of his love reaching nearer and nearer +to her through the darkness. So she kept her head clear and her hands +steady and forced a smile whenever the chief eyed her anxiously. She never +failed a boy “going west.” To the last breath she let him see the +radiating faith of her own soul that believed in the ultimate Love above +everything else. Those old illuminating smiles that had won for her her +nickname of Leerie never had to be forced, and they lighted the way out +for many a groping soul in that little church. And the old Frenchwomen, +watching above their prayers for the return of Louis or Charles or +Jacques, said:</p> + +<p>“See, for all she’s so young, she knows what the mother-heart is. That is +why she feels for us. She knows how our hearts have bled.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>On the 9th of November they were still there. The division had continued +its drive, but slowly, and no orders had come for the mobile unit to go +forward. And then came one of those lulls and flush-backs which for the +moment made one almost believe that the tide of battle had turned +again—and for the enemy. With the coming of the first wounded that day +came orders to evacuate the town at once.</p> + +<p>At first the townsfolk would not believe, but as the muddy columns of the +first company could be seen on the outskirts, doubt gave place to +certainty, and without moan they gathered up what few belongings they +could and set their faces toward what they prayed would hold French soil. +Before the refugees had cleared the town, the shelling began, giving the +last impelling haste to their exodus. The hospital unit stayed in the +church. They got the wounded ready to be moved and waited for further +orders. They came in another ten minutes; everybody was to clear out. +Three ambulances from the east and a half-dozen from the west gathered up +the stretcher cases, while the others piled into the supply-trucks—that +is, all but the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> chief and Sheila. They stood in the church door with +minds for anything but going. It came to them both that, as the battalions +fell back, each would be bringing its wounded as far as it could. If there +was a place to drop them—and care waiting until a few more ambulances +could push through—many lives might be saved, and much suffering.</p> + +<p>The chief looked down at the girl and saw what was in her mind. Linking +his arm in hers, he muttered under his breath, “Still game, bless you!” +And then aloud: “Miss O’Leary and I have a liking for this place. We’ll +stay until the next orders.”</p> + +<p>Griggs had climbed to the footboard of an ambulance, and he faced them +with contempt. “We didn’t volunteer to sit ’round and be blown to bits. +Don’t be fools, you two. Come on while you’ve got a chance.” And then, +when he saw how futile were his words: “If you haven’t had enough +slaughter for one while, I have. Good-by.”</p> + +<p>As they waved them off, the muddy column of the first company swung down +the street. It was even as they had thought—wounded were with them, and +the nurse and surgeon hurried inside to make ready. The day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> wound itself +out in an almost ludicrous repetition of events. Straggling companies fell +back, dropped their wounded, and went on; a few ambulances made the town, +gathered up the worst cases, and went back. Desultory shells picked off +their belfry, smashed a group of monuments in the cemetery, and wiped out +a street of houses not far away. And every half-hour or so came the orders +to evacuate at once. Regiment after regiment fell back through the city; +the rest of the division must have passed to north and south of it. By +nightfall nearly all had passed and the town was left like a delta between +two dividing currents.</p> + +<p>“They’ll begin shelling in earnest by midnight. We’ll get barrages from +both sides. We won’t know it, but this town’s going to be wiped off the +map to-night.” The chief said it in his most matter-of-fact voice, but his +face showed gray.</p> + +<p>The girl hushed him. “The boys might hear, and they’ve been through so +much. There’s no harm in letting them hope.” She turned back to the +emergency kettle she was stirring. They were making cocoa and feeding the +boys out of the chalice-cups from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> altar. To the nurse it seemed like +passing the last communion, and though her hands kept steady, her heart +seemed drained.</p> + +<p>Out of the noise and the gathering gloom outside came two more +stretcher-loads. The bearers whistled when they saw the red cross on the +door. They whistled harder when they pushed it open and looked inside. +“Gee! we thought all you outfits had been ordered back!” The bearers laid +down their burden on a pew, and the fore one groaned out the words.</p> + +<p>“We were,” the chief spoke. “Sorry we didn’t go?”</p> + +<p>“Dunno. Bet these chaps wouldn’t be, though—if they knew. Don’t know +whether it’s any use trying; they’re all but gone, Doc.” The speaker +jerked his head over his shoulder and thumbed a command to the other +bearers. “Here you, Jake! You and Fritzie hustle along with yours.”</p> + +<p>As the surgeon bent over to examine, the nurse stopped an instant to +listen, then went on feeding her boys.</p> + +<p>“This one’s French.” The chief was looking over the first stretcher. “How +did you pick him up?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>“Got mixed up with a company of <i>poilus</i> in the last scrap. We fought all +together.”</p> + +<p>“Hmmmm! He’ll need speed or he’ll make it. Give me a hand with him, boys, +over to the table there.”</p> + +<p>“Wait, Doc. There’s another just as bad. He’s—the other’s a Yank.”</p> + +<p>The spokesman again jerked his comrades into further evidence. One of the +bearers was an American, the other a captured German, slightly wounded. +Between them lay a figure in the gray uniform of a correspondent. A heavy +growth of beard made the man almost unrecognizable, but something tugged +at the chief’s memory and set him speculating. He cast a furtive glance +over his shoulder toward the nurse, then lowered his voice.</p> + +<p>“You haven’t any idea who it is, have you?”</p> + +<p>“Sure. He’s the A. P. man that’s been with our division from the first. +His name’s Brooks.”</p> + +<p>The chalice fell through Sheila’s fingers and struck the altar steps with +a sharp, metallic ring. The next instant she was beside the chief, looking +down with wide, unbelieving<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> eyes at the stretcher which held nothing +familiar but the gray uniform—and there were many men wearing the same. +It could not be. This was not the way Peter was coming back to her. In all +the days of horror, of caring for the hundreds of wounded, it had never +entered her mind that war might claim the man she loved. Her love, and the +fulfilment thereof, had stood out as the one absolute reality of life, the +thing that could not fail. This simply could not be; Peter was still far +away, but coming, supreme in his strength, invulnerable in his love and +promise to her.</p> + +<p>“You—don’t know him?” The chief asked it hopefully.</p> + +<p>The girl shook her head. “He can’t be—The beard—Wait.” Her hand slipped +through the opening in his uniform to an inside pocket. She drew out a +flat bundle of papers, and the first glance told her all she needed to +know. There was Peter’s unmistakable scribbling on the uppermost, and from +under it showed the corner of one of her letters to him.</p> + +<p>The chief’s hand steadied her. “No time to lose, girl, but we’ll pull him +through.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> We’ve got to fight for it, but we’ll do it. Easy there, boys. +Take him over to the table, there, under the light.”</p> + +<p>But Sheila O’Leary put out a detaining hand. Her eyes were no longer on +Peter; she was looking at the figure on the other stretcher. “What did you +say about that French boy?”</p> + +<p>“He’ll have to go, poor chap! There isn’t time for both. Listen, Leerie,” +as a flash of pain swept the girl’s face, “it’s a toss-up between them +who’s worse, and it’s down now to a matter of minutes. It means the best +team-work we’ve done yet to save just your man.”</p> + +<p>Still the girl made no move. Her eyes were turned away. In her ears was +ringing the chorus of the mothers, those waiting for Louis or Jacques or +Lucien to come home. Dear God, what was she to do?</p> + +<p>The chief pulled her sleeve. “Wake up, girl. There’s a chance for your +man, I tell you, only in Heaven’s name don’t waste it! Come.”</p> + +<p>She tried to take her eyes away from the boy, tried to shut her ears to +the cry that was ringing in them. She wanted to look at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> Peter and say the +word that would start the bearers carrying him to that little zone of +light about the altar where they had saved so many during those days. But +her eyes clung, in spite of her, to the white boy-face and the faded blue +uniform below it. Peter had no mother, no one but herself to face the +grief and mourn the loss of him, and the hearts of French mothers had been +drained—bled almost to the last drop? Wouldn’t Peter say to save that +drop? Had she the right to shed it and spare her own heart’s bleeding? The +questions filtered through her mind with the inevitableness of sands in an +hour-glass. With a cry of agony she wrenched her eyes away at last and +faced the chief.</p> + +<p>“We’ll let Peter—wait. We’ll take the boy—first.”</p> + +<p>Dumfounded, the chief stared for the fraction of a moment; then he shook +her. “For God’s sake, wake up, Leerie! You’ve gone through so much, your +thinking isn’t just clear. Get rational, girl. You’d be deliberately +killing your man, to leave him now. You don’t realize his condition, or +you wouldn’t be wasting time this way. By the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> time we finish with the +first there’ll be no chance for the second; they’re both bleeding in a +dozen places. Here, boys! Help me over with Mr. Brooks.”</p> + +<p>But Sheila put out a quick hand and held them back. “And if I put Peter +first I shall be deliberately killing the other. Don’t you see? I can’t do +it—Peter wouldn’t wish it—it would mean—Boys, carry over the other. The +chief’s going to save a lad for France.”</p> + +<p>There was no denying her. She stood guard over Peter’s stretcher until the +other had been lifted and carried away. Grimly the surgeon followed, and +Sheila turned to the two who were still holding the stretcher.</p> + +<p>“Would you mind putting him down there? Now, will you leave us just a +minute?” She spoke to the American, but the German must have understood, +for he led the way to the church door and stood with his back to her.</p> + +<p>Even the comfort of staying with Peter to the last was denied her. The +chief had said it must be team-work, the best. She mustn’t waste many +seconds. She thought of the many she had helped to die, the courage a warm +grip of the hand had given, the healing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> strength in a smile, and her +heart cringed before this last sacrifice of giving Peter over to a +desolate, prayerless death. Hardly breathing, she slipped down and laid +her cheek to his bearded one. She could offer one prayer, that he need +never wake to know. Kneeling there, his last words came back to her almost +in mockery:</p> + +<p>“Don’t bungle your instincts. I’d trust them next to God’s own.”</p> + +<p>Dear God, if she only could bungle them! If only they had not wrenched +from her this torturing, ghastly choice! She knew the meaning now of the +strangeness that had met her as she first crossed the threshold of the +little church. She knew why the chorus of mothers had been sung so deep +into her heart. The greatest moment of her life had come—a terrible, +soul-rending moment. And beyond it lay nothing. She choked out an +incoherent, futile prayer into the dulled ears—and left him. This—this +was her farewell to Peter Brooks—her man—her man for all time.</p> + +<p>The American orderly had disappeared. Sheila stumbled over to the door and +gripped the sleeve of the German.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>“If he opens his eyes”—she opened and shut her own eyes in +pantomime—“come for me, quick. Verstehen?”</p> + +<p>The German nodded.</p> + +<p>For the next half-hour, with nerves keyed to their utmost and hands +working with the greatest speed and skill they were capable of, Sheila +O’Leary’s soul went down into purgatory and stayed there. Not once did she +look beyond the boy she was helping to save; not once did she let herself +think what might be happening beyond the circle of light that hemmed them +in. With all the woman courage she could muster, she was stifling every +breath of love or longing—or self-pity. If she could have killed her body +and known that when that night’s work was done she would be laid in the +cemetery outside with Peter, she would have been almost satisfied.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she realized they had finished. The chief was repeating something +over and over again.</p> + +<p>“The boy is safe. You’d better lie down.”</p> + +<p>The bearers were moving the boy back to the pews and the chief was leading +her down the steps of the chancel. But it was Sheila who guided their +steps at the bottom. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> led the way toward the German and the thing he +had been asked to watch. Terror shook her. It seemed as if she could never +look at what she knew would be waiting for her, and yet no power on earth +could have held her back.</p> + +<p>As she reached the prisoner she saw in bewilderment a strange scattering +of things on the floor about him—forceps, some knives, a roll of gauze, +and a syringe. There was an odor of a strange antiseptic which made her +faint. She tottered and would have fallen had the German not helped the +chief to steady her.</p> + +<p>“He has not gained consciousness, madam. He has lost too much blood for +that.” The German spoke in English. He also spread his hands in mute +apology for what he had done. “I have stanched his wounds with what poor +supplies I had with me. It has merely kept him alive. He will require more +care, better dressing.”</p> + +<p>No one answered. Words seemed the most impossible and absurd means of +expression just then.</p> + +<p>The German smiled at the look Sheila gave him, and the smile was arrogant. +“You<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> Americans have always made such a fuss over what you have been +pleased to call our brutalities. What is war if it isn’t a consistent +effort to exterminate the enemy? The women are the wives of the enemy and +the breeders of more; the wounded are still the enemy—if they recover, +they fight again. But a German knows how to honor a brave act. And when +you go back, madam, you can tell how Carl Tiefmann, a German surgeon, +wounded and taken prisoner, so far forgot his Prussian creed as to spare +an enemy for a brave woman.”</p> + +<p>He bowed and went back to the church doors. Sheila watched him go through +a trailing of mist; then she dropped through the chief’s arms, +unconscious, on the floor beside Peter’s stretcher.</p> + +<p>The Germans never reached the little town, and by some merciful stroke of +luck neither did any more of the shells. So it came to pass that on the +11th of November a very white nurse, holding fast to the hand of a man +unconscious on a stretcher, followed Peace across the threshold of the +American Military Hospital No. 10. It was days before Sheila spoke above a +husky <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>whisper or smiled, for it was days before Peter was out of +danger, but there came a morning at last when a shaven and shorn Peter, +looking oddly familiar, opened clear, sane eyes and saw the woman he loved +bending close above him.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="bbox" style="width: 443px; height: 550px;"><img src="images/ill04.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="center">“He will require more care, better dressing”</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>He gave the same old cry that he had given ages before when he had come +out of another nightmare of unconsciousness and fear, “It’s Leerie—why, +it’s Leerie!”</p> + +<p>And Sheila smiled down at him again with the old luminous smile.</p> + +<p>When he was sufficiently mended to look about him and take reckoning of +what had happened, he asked first for the ring that he had bought for that +long-before wedding and that he had carried ever since with him. And he +asked, second, for the chaplain.</p> + +<p>Sheila drew the gold chain from about her neck and dangled the ring in +front of his nose. “I took it when we cut off your coat that night, and +I’ve kept it handy ever since. The chaplain’s handy, too. He’s +promised—any hour of the day or night. Shall we send for him—now?”</p> + +<p>Peter nodded.</p> + +<p>The nurse turned to go, hesitated, and then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> came back to the cot. Peter +thought he had never seen her eyes so full of wonder.</p> + +<p>“Man o’ mine, maybe you won’t want me when you know I almost let you go, +that I intended to let you die to save first a French lad that came in +with you.”</p> + +<p>Peter grinned. “Same old Leerie! Well, we’re quits, sweetheart, and I’m +glad to have it off my conscience. Sort of did the same thing myself. +Rushed off in the shelling to bring in that same poor chap—he’d got a +bullet in his leg—and all the time I knew I ought to be thinking of you +first and hanging on to safety. Funny, isn’t it, how something queer gets +you in the midst of it all and you do the last thing in the world you want +to do? A year or two and the whole thing will be unexplainable.”</p> + +<p>Sheila bent over and laid her lips to Peter’s. She knew that in a year—in +a century—they would still understand why they had done these things, and +she was glad they had both paid their utmost for the love and happiness +that she knew was theirs now for all time.</p> + +<p>Peter broke on her reverie with a chuckle. “Remember old Hennessy saying +once that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> he believed you would give me away with everything else—if you +thought anybody else needed me more? He’d certainly wash his hands of the +pair of us.”</p> + +<p>“Hennessy’s an old dear. I’ll get the chaplain, and afterward let’s send +Hennessy the first—and the best—cable he’s ever had. Sort of owe it to +him, don’t we?”</p> + +<p>Without any of the original splendor of decorations, collation, and +attire, with no one but the chaplain to marry them and the chief to bless +them, Sheila O’Leary came into her own at last. As for Peter—he looked as +Hennessy described him on the day the Brookses came home—“wi’ one eye on +the thruest lass God ever made an’ the other on Paradise.”</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p> +<h2>AFTERWORD</h2> + +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">I thought</span> I had to have a better ending to the story than the scraps of +things I had made over from Leerie’s letters and what Peter had told me. +So I went to Hennessy.</p> + +<p>It was midwinter. I found him cracking the ice on the pond to let the +swans in for a cold bath.</p> + +<p>“’Tis not docthor’s ordthers,” he grinned by way of explanation; “but they +get so blitherin’ uneasy there’s no housin’ them. That’s the why I give +them a bit of a cold nip onct the while—sure ’tis good threatment for us +all—an’ then they settle down.”</p> + +<p>I huddled deeper into a fur coat and tried to agree with Hennessy.</p> + +<p>“Did ye see Leerie, then, since she came home?”</p> + +<p>“Have you?”</p> + +<p>He shirred his lips into an ecstatic pucker and whistled triumphantly. +“Wasn’t I always sayin’ she’d marry the finest gentleman in the land, same +as the King o’ Ireland’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> only daughter, and go dandtherin’ off to a fine +home of her own?”</p> + +<p>“And she has.”</p> + +<p>“She has that.”</p> + +<p>“And so the story’s told, Hennessy.”</p> + +<p>“Told nothin’. Sure, it isn’t half told—it isn’t more than half begun, +just.”</p> + +<p>“But you can’t end a book that way. You have to end with an ending.”</p> + +<p>“’Tis the best way to end a book, then. Haven’t ye taken the lass over the +worst o’ the road an’ aren’t ye leavin’ her with the best ahead?”</p> + +<p>“But what is there left—to find along the way? She’s found her +work—that’s over with. She’s found her man—that’s over with. She’s found +love—that’s over—”</p> + +<p>Hennessy interrupted me almost viciously. I think he wanted to prod me +instead of the ice. “What kind of talkin’ is that for a person who thries +to write books about real folk? Ye harken to me. Do ye think because love +is found ’tis over with? Sure, Leerie’s only caught a whiff of it +yet—’tis naught but budded for her. By an’ by there come the blossom of +it an’ the fruit of it. An’ when death maybe withers it for a +spell—’twill be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> but a winther-time promise to bud an’ blossom again in +the Counthry Beyond. There’s no witherin’ to love like hers. An’ do ye +think because she has her man found there’s no pretty fancy or adventure +still waitin’ them along the way? An’ do ye think Leerie’s work will ever +be done? Tell me that!”</p> + +<p>The shirr tightened into something like contempt. Hennessy looked down +upon me with undisguised pity.</p> + +<p>“Did ye ever know Leerie at all, at all, I’m wondtherin’—to be savin’ +things like that? Don’t ye know for the likes o’ her there’ll be +childher—Saint Anthony send them a nestful!” He crossed himself to +further the wish. “An’ over an’ above the time it takes tendin’ an’ lovin’ +them an’ rearin’ them into the finest parcel o’ youngsters God ever +made—wi’ the help o’ their parents—there’ll be time left to light the +way for every poor, sorry soul within a hundred miles o’ her. Ye can take +my word for it; an’ if she never did another stroke o’ work so long as she +lived—bein’ Leerie, just, would be enough.”</p> + +<p>“You may be right, Hennessy, but it’s still no way to end a book.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>He came a step nearer and shook a warning finger at me. “Will ye listen? +Faith, I’m wondtherin’ sometimes that folk read your books when ye have so +little sense wi’ the endin’ o’ them. Don’t ye know that a book that ends +wi’ the end is a dead book entirely? An’ who cares to be readin’ a dead +book? Tell me that.”</p> + +<p>His contempt changed to commiseration. I might have been Brian Boru, the +gray swan, the way he looked at me.</p> + +<p>“The right way of endin’ is with a beginnin’—the beginnin’ o’ something +bigger an’ betther an’ sweeter. ’Tis like ye were takin’ a friend with ye +up a high hill—showin’ him all the pretty things along the way. Then just +afore ye get to the top—an’ afore ye can look over an’ see what’s waitin’ +beyond—ye leave him, sayin’, ‘Go ye alone an’ find whatever ye are most +wishin’ for.’”</p> + +<p>He stopped, pushed his hat back and pulled his forelock as if for more +inspiration. “Do ye see? Just be leavin’ it to folk the world over. They +can read in a betther endin’ than ye can be writin’ in in a hundthred +years. An’ let Leerie be as I’m<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> +tellin’ ye—wi’ the road windin’ over the +hill an’ out o’ sight. Sure the two of us know what she’ll be findin’ +there; an’ do ye think the readers have less sense than what we have?”</p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">THE END</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><b>Transcriber’s Notes:</b></p> + +<p>Images have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to a nearby paragraph break.</p> + +<p>The text in the list of illustrations is presented as in the original text, but the links +navigate to the page number closest to the illustration’s loaction in this document.</p> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Leerie, by Ruth Sawyer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEERIE *** + +***** This file should be named 32959-h.htm or 32959-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/9/5/32959/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Leerie + +Author: Ruth Sawyer + +Illustrator: Clinton Balmer + +Release Date: June 24, 2010 [EBook #32959] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEERIE *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + + + + +Leerie + +Ruth Sawyer + + + + +[Illustration: Leerie] + + + + + LEERIE + + + BY + RUTH SAWYER + + AUTHOR OF + SEVEN MILES TO ARDEN, ETC. + + + ILLUSTRATED BY + CLINTON BALMER + + + "_And O! before you hurry by + With ladder and with light, + O Leerie, see a little child + And nod to him to-night!_" + + + GROSSET & DUNLAP + NEW YORK PUBLISHERS + + Made in the United States of America + + + + LEERIE + + Copyright 1920, by Harper & Brothers + Printed in the United States of America + + + + _To Lamplighters--the world over_ + + + + +CONTENTS + + + Chap. Page + + Foreword ix + + I. The Man Who Feared Sleep 3 + + II. Old King Cole 40 + + III. The Changeling 77 + + IV. For the Honor of the San 116 + + V. The Last of the Surgical 155 + + VI. Monsieur Satan 191 + + VII. The Lad Who Outsang the Stars 232 + + VIII. Into Her Own 269 + + Afterword 306 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + Leerie _Frontispiece_ + + Holding him high for Peter to admire _Facing p._ 100 + + "The first look I had told me she had gone quite mad" " 216 + + "He will require more care, better dressing" " 302 + + + + +Foreword + + +I like to write stories. Best of all I like to write stories about people +who help the world to go round with a little more cheer and good will than +is usual. You know--and I know--there are a few who put into life +something more than the bare ingredients. They add a plum here--extra +spice there. They bake it well--and then they trim it up like an +all-the-year-round birthday cake with white frosting, angelica, and red +cherries. Last of all they add the candles and light them so that it glows +warmly and invitingly for all; fine to see, sweet to taste. + +Of course, there are not so many people with the art or the will to do +this, and, having done it, they have not always the bigness of heart to +pass it round for the others to share. But I like to make it my business +to find as many as I can; and when I am lucky enough to find one I pop +him--or her--into a book, to have and to hold always as long as books last +and memory keeps green. + +Not long ago I was ill--ridiculously ill--and my doctor popped me into a +sanitarium. "Here's the place," I said, "where people are needed to make +the world go round cheerfully, if they are needed anywhere." And so I set +about to get well and find one. + +She came--before I had half finished. The first thing I noticed was the +inner light in her--a light as from many candles. It shone all over her +face and made the room brighter for a long time after she had left. The +next thing I noticed was the way everybody watched for her to come +round--everybody turning child again with nose pressed hard against the +window-pane. It made me remember Stevenson's _Lamplighter_; and for many +days there rang in my ears one of his bits of human understanding: + + And oh! before you hurry by with ladder and with light, + O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him to-night. + +Before I knew it I had all the makings of a story. I trailed it through +the mud of gossip and scandal; I followed it to the highroad of adventure +and on to the hills of inspiration and sacrifice. It was all there--ripe +for the plucking; and with the good assistance of Hennessy I plucked it. +Before the story was half written I was well--so much for the healing +grace of a story and the right person to put in it. + +This much I have told that you may know that _Leerie_ is as true as all +the best and finest things in the world are true. I am only the passer-on +of life as she has made it--spiced, trimmed, and lighted with many +candles. So if the taste pleases, help yourself bountifully; there is +enough for all. And if you must thank any one--thank _Leerie_. + +RUTH SAWYER. + +[Illustration] + + + + +LEERIE + + + + +Chapter I + +THE MAN WHO FEARED SLEEP + + +Peter Brooks felt himself for a man given up. He had felt his physical +unfitness for some time in the silent, condemning judgment masked under +the too sympathetic gaze of his fellow-men; he had felt it in the +over-solicitous inquiries after his health made by the staff; and there +was his chief, who had fallen into the comfortable week-end habit of +telling him he looked first-rate, and in the same breath begging him to +take the next week off. For months past he had been conscious of the +sidelong glances cast by his brother alumni at the College Club when he +appeared, and the way they had of dropping into a contradictory lot of +topics whenever he joined a group unexpectedly showed only too plainly +that he had been the real subject under discussion. Yes, he felt that the +world at large had turned its thumb down as far as he was concerned, but +it had caused him surprisingly little worry until that last visit to +Doctor Dempsy. + +There it was as if Peter's sensibilities concerning himself had suddenly +become acute. The doctor sounded too reassuring even for a combined friend +and physician; he protested too much that he had found nothing at all the +matter with him--nothing at all. When a doctor seems so superlatively +anxious to set a man right with himself, it is time to look out; therefore +the casual, just-happened-to-mention-it way that he finally broached the +question of a sanitarium came within an inch of knocking the last prop +from under Peter's resolve not to lose his grip. For the first time he +fully realized how it felt to be given up, and, characteristically, he +thanked the Almighty that there was no one to whom it would really matter. + +For a year he had been slowly going to pieces; for a year he had been +dropping in for Dempsy to patch him up. There had been a host of miserable +puny ailments which in themselves meant nothing, but combined and in a +young man meant a great deal. Of late his memory had failed him +outrageously; he had had frequent attacks of vertigo, and these of +themselves had rendered him unreliable and unfit for newspaper work. +Irresponsible! Unfit! Peter snorted the words out honestly to himself. +Under these conditions, and with no one to care, he could see no plausible +reason for trying to coax a mere existence out of life. + +To those who knew him best--to Doctor Dempsy most of all--his condition +seemed unexplainable. Here was a man who never drank, who never overfed, +who smoked in moderation, whose life stood out conspicuously decent and +clean against the possibilities of his environment. What lay back of this +going to pieces? Doctor Dempsy had tried for a year to find out and had +failed. To Peter, it was not unexplainable at all--he knew. Possessed of a +constitution above the average, he had forced it to do the work of a mind +far above the average, while he had denied it one of the three necessities +of life and sanity. His will and reason had been powerless to help +him--and now? + +Because he had hated himself for hiding this knowledge from the man who +had tried to do so much for him and wanted to make amends in some way--and +because it was the easiest thing, after all, to agree--he let Doctor +Dempsy pick out a sanitarium, make all arrangements, buy his ticket, and +see him off. He drew the line at being personally conducted, however. +Whether he went to a sanitarium or not did not matter; what mattered was +how long would he stay and where would he go afterward. Or would there be +an afterward? These were the questions that mulled through Peter's mind on +the train, and, coupled with the memory of the worried kindliness on +Doctor Dempsy's face, they were the only traveling companions Peter had. +It was not to be wondered, therefore, that as he left the car and boarded +the sanitarium omnibus he felt indescribably old, weary, and finished with +things. + +At first he thought he was the only passenger, but as the driver leisurely +gathered up his reins and gave a cluck to the horses a girl's voice rang +out from the station, "Flanders--Flanders! Why, I believe you're +forgetting me." And the next instant the girl herself appeared, suitcase +in hand. + +The driver grinned down a sheepish apology and Peter turned to hold the +door open. She stood framed in the doorway for a moment while she lifted +in her case, and for that moment Peter had conflicting impressions. He was +conscious of a modest, nun-like appearance of clothes; the traveling-suit +was gray, and the small gray hat had an encircling breast of white +feathers. The lips had a quiet, demure curve; but the chin was determined, +almost aggressive, while the gray eyes positively emitted sparks. The girl +was not beautiful, she was luminous--and all the gray clothing in the +world could not quench her. Peter found himself instantly wondering how +anything so vitally alive and fresh to look at could be headed for a +sanitarium with broken-down hulks like himself. + +She caught Peter's eye upon her and smiled. "If Flanders will hurry we'll +be there in time to see Hennessy feeding the swans," she announced. + +There was no response. Peter had suddenly lost the knack of it, along with +other things. He could only look bewildered and a trifle more tired. But +the girl must have understood it was only a temporary lack, for she did +not draw in like a snail and dismiss Peter from her conscious horizon. She +smiled again. + +"I see. Newcomer?" And, nodding an affirmative to herself, she went +sociably on: "Hennessy and the swans are symbolical. Couldn't tell you +why--not in a thousand years--but you'll feel it for yourself after you've +been here long enough. Hennessy hasn't changed in fifteen years--maybe +longer for those who can reckon longer. Same old blue jumper, same old +tawny corduroys; if he ever had a new pair he's kept them to himself. And +the swans have changed less than Hennessy. If anything gets on your nerves +here--treatment, doctors, nurses, anything--go and watch Hennessy. He's +the one sure, universal cure." + +The bus swung round the corner and brought the ivy-covered building into +sight. The girl's face grew lighter and lighter; in the shadow of the bus +it seemed to Peter actually to shine. "Dear old San," she said under her +breath. "Heigh-ho! it's good to get back!" + +Before Peter could fathom any reason for this unaccountable rejoicing, the +bus had stopped and the girl and suitcase had vanished. Wearily he came +back to his own reason for being there, and docilely he allowed the porter +to shoulder his luggage and conduct him within. + +Three days passed--three days in which Peter thought little and felt much. +He had been passed about among the staff of doctors very much like a +delectable dish, and sampled by all. Half a dozen had taken him in hand. +He had been apportioned a treatment, a diet, a bath hour, and a nurse. +Looking back on those three days--and looking forward to a continuous +protraction of the same--he could see less reason than ever for coaxing an +existence out of life. Life meant to him work--efficient, telling +work--and companionship--sharing with a congenial soul recreation, +opinions, and meals--and some day, love. Well--what of these was left him? +It was then that he remembered the gray girl's advice in the omnibus and +went out to find Hennessy and the swans. + +His nurse was at supper, so he was mercifully free; moreover it was the +emptiest time of day for out-of-doors. A few straggling patients were +knocking prescribed golf-balls about the links, and a scattering of nurses +were hurrying in with their wheel-chairs. Half-way between the links and +the last building was the pond, shaded by pines and flanked by a miniature +rustic rest-house, and thither Peter went. On a willow stump emerging from +the pond he found Hennessy, as wrinkled as a butternut, with a thatch of +gray hair, a mouth shirred into a small, open ellipse, and eyes full of +irrepressible twinkles. He was seated tailor fashion on the stump, a tin +platter of bread across his knees and the swans circling about him. He +looked every whit as Irish as his name, and he was scolding and blarneying +the birds by turn. + +"Go-wan, there, ye feathered heathen! Can't ye be lettin' them that has +good manners get a morsel once in a while? Faith, ye'll be havin' old Doc +Willum afther ye with his stomach cure if ye don't watch out." He looked +over his shoulder and caught Peter's gaze. "Sure, birds or humans, they +all have to be coaxed or scolded into keepin' healthy, I'm thinkin', and +Hennessy's head nurse to the swans," he ended, with a chuckle. + +But there was something quite different on Peter's mind. "Has one of the +patients--a young person in gray--been here lately? I mean have you seen +her about any time?" + +Hennessy shook a puzzled head. "A young gray patient, ye say? Sure there +might be a hundred--that's not over-distinguishin'. I leave it to ye, sir, +just a gray patient is not over-distinguishin'." + +Peter reflected. "It was a quiet, cloister kind of gray, but her eyes were +not--cloistered. They were the shiningest--" + +A chuckle from Hennessy brought him to an abrupt finish. "Eyes? Gray? +Patient? Ha, ha! Did ye hear that, Brian Boru?" and he flicked his cap at +a gray swan. "Sure, misther, that's no patient. 'Tis Leerie--herself." + +"Leerie?" The name sounded absurd to Peter, and slightly reminiscent of +something, he could not tell what. + +"Aye, Leerie. Real name, Sheila O'Leary--as good a name as Hennessy. But +they named her Leerie her probation year. In course she's Irish an' not +Scotch, an' I never heard tell of a lass afore that went 'round +a-lightin' street lamps, but for all that the name fits. Ye mind grown-ups +an' childher alike watch for her to come 'round." + +"A nurse," repeated Peter, dully. + +"Aye. An' she come back three days since, Heaven be praised! afther bein' +gone three years." + +"Three years," repeated Peter again. "Why was she gone three years?" + +Hennessy eyed him narrowly for a moment. "A lot of blitherin' fools sent +her away, that's what, an' she not much more than graduated. Suspension, +they called it." + +"Suspension for what?" + +The shirring in Hennessy's lips tightened, and he drew his breath in and +out in a sort of asthmatic whistle. This was the only sign of emotion ever +betrayed by Hennessy. When he spoke again he fairly whistled his words. +"If ye want to know what for--ye can ask some one else. Good night." And +with a bang to the platter Hennessy was away before Peter could stop him. + +Alone with the swans, Peter lingered a moment to consider. A nurse. The +gray person a nurse! And sent away for some--some--Peter's mind groped +inadequately for a reason. Pshaw! He could smile at the absurdity of his +interest. What did it matter--or she matter--or anything matter? For a man +who has been given up, who has been sent away to a sanitarium to finish +with life as speedily and decently as he can, to stand on one leg by a +pond, for all the world like a swan himself, and wonder about a girl he +had seen but once, in a sanitarium omnibus, was absurd. And the name +Leerie? Of course they had taken it from Stevenson, but it suited. Yes, +Hennessy was right, it certainly suited. + +A rustle of white skirts coming down the path attracted his attention. It +was his nurse, through supper, coming like a commandant to take him in +charge. Thirty-seven, in a sanitarium, with a nurse attendant! Peter +groaned inwardly. It was monstrous, a cowardly, blackguard attack of an +unthinking Creator on a human being--a decent human being--who might +be--who wanted to be--of some use in the world. For a breath he wanted to +roar forth blasphemy after blasphemy against the universe and its Maker, +but in the next breath he suddenly realized how little he cared. With a +smile almost tragically senile, he let the nurse lead him away. + +And all the while a girl was leaning over the sill of the little +rest-house, watching him. It was a girl with a demure mouth, a determined +chin, and eyes that shone, who answered impartially to the names of +Sheila, Miss O'Leary, or Leerie. The gray was changed for the white +uniform and cap of a graduate nurse, and the change was becoming. She had +recognized him at first with casual amusement as she watched him fill her +prescription of Hennessy and the swans, but after Hennessy had gone she +watched him with all the intuitive sympathy of her womanhood and the +understanding of her profession. Not one of the emotions that swept +Peter's face but registered full on the girl's sensibilities: the +illuminating interest in something, bewilderment, hopelessness, despair, +agony, and a final weary surrender to the inevitable--they were all there. +But it was the strange, haunting look in the deep-set eyes that made the +girl sit up, alert and curious. + +"'Phobia," she said, softly, under her breath. "Not over-fed liver or +alcoholic heart, but 'phobia, I'll wager, poor childman! Wonder how the +doctors have diagnosed him!" + +She learned how a few days later when Miss Maxwell, the superintendent of +nurses, stopped her in the second-floor corridor. "My dear, I should like +to change you from Madam Courot to another case for a few days. Miss +Jacobs is on now and--" + +"Coppy?" Sheila O'Leary broke in abruptly, a smile of amusement breaking +the demureness of her lips. "Needn't explain, Miss Max. I see. Young male +patient, unattached. Frequent pulse-takings and cerebral massage, with +late evening strolls in the pine woods. Business office takes notice and a +change of nurse recommended. Poor Coppy--ripping nurse! If only she +wouldn't grow flabby every time a pair of masculine eyes are focused her +way!" + +"But it wasn't the business office this time." Miss Maxwell herself smiled +as she made the statement. "It was the patient himself. He asked for a +change." + +"A man that's a man for all he's a patient. God bless his soul!" and a +look of sudden radiant delight swept the girl's face. "What's he here +for? Jilting chorus-girl--fatty degeneration of his check-book?" + +The superintendent shook her head. "He doesn't happen to be that kind. +He's a newspaper-man--a personal friend of Doctor Dempsy's. Overwork, he +thinks, and for a year he's been trying to put him back on his feet. It's +a case of nerves, with nothing discoverable back of it so far as he can +see, but he wants us to try. Doctor Nichols has analyzed him; teeth have +been X-rayed; eyes, nose, and throat gone over. There's nothing radically +wrong with stomach or kidneys; heart shows nervous affection, nothing +more. He ought to be fit physically and he isn't. Miss Jacobs reports a +maximum of an hour's sleep in twenty-four. Doctor Dempsy writes it's a +case for a nurse, not a doctor, and the most tactful, intuitive nurse we +have in the sanitarium. Please take it, Leerie." + +The girl stiffened under the two hands placed on her shoulders, while +something indescribably baffling and impenetrable took possession of her +whole being. Her voice became almost curt. "Sorry, can't. Bargain, you +know. Wouldn't have come back at all if you hadn't promised I should not +be asked to take those cases." + +"I'll not ask you to take another, but you know how I feel about any +patient Doctor Dempsy sends to us. Anything I can do means paying back a +little on the great debt I owe him, the debt of a wonderful training. +That's why I ask--this once." A look almost fanatical came into the face +of the superintendent. + +The girl smiled wistfully up at her. "Wish I could! Honest I do, Miss Max! +I'd fight for the life of any patient under the old San roof--man, woman, +or child; but I'll not baby-tend unhealthy-minded young men. You know as +well as I how it's always been: they lose their heads and I my +temper--results, the same. I end by telling them just what I think; they +pay their bills and leave the same day. The San loses a perfectly good +annual patient, and the business office feels sore at me. No, I'm no good +at frequent pulses and cerebral massage; leave that to Coppy." + +There was no stinging sarcasm in the girl's voice. She reached out an +impulsive hand and slipped it into one of the older woman's, leaving it +there long enough to give it a quick, firm grip. "Remember, it's only +three years--and it takes so little to set tongues wagging again. So let's +stick fast to the bargain, dear; only nervous old ladies or the bad +surgical cases." + +"Very well. Only--if you could change your mind, let me know. In the mean +time I'll put Miss Saunders on," and the superintendent turned away, +troubled and unsatisfied. + +An hour later Sheila O'Leary came upon Miss Saunders with her new patient, +and the patient was the man of the omnibus--the man with the haunting, +deep-set eyes. Unnoticed, she watched them sitting on a bench by the pond, +the nurse droning aloud from a book, the man sagging listlessly, plainly +hearing nothing and seeing nothing. The picture set Sheila O'Leary +shuddering. If it was a case of 'phobia, God help the poor man with +Saunders coupled to his nerves! Cumbersome, big-hearted, and hopelessly +dull, Saunders was incapable of nursing with tactful insight a +nerve-racked man. In the whole wide realm of disease there seemed nothing +more tragic to Sheila than a victim of 'phobia. It turned normal men and +women into pitiful children, afraid of the dark, groping out for the hand +to reassure them, to put heart and courage back in them again--the hand +that nine cases out of ten never reaches them in time. + +With an impulsive toss of her head, Sheila O'Leary swung about in her +tracks. She would break her own bargain for this once. She would go to +Miss Max and ask to be put on the case. Here was a soul sick unto death +with a fear of something, and Saunders was nursing it! What did it matter +if it was a man or a dog, as long as she could get into the dark after him +and show him the way out! Her resolve held to the point of branching +paths, and there she stopped to consider again. + +Peter's eyes were on the swans; there was nothing to the general droop of +the shoulders, the thrust-forward bend of the neck, the hollowing of the +smooth-shaven cheeks, and the graying of the hair above the temples to +write him other than an average overworked or habitually harassed business +man here for rest and treatment. If Sheila was mistaken--if there was no +abnormal mental condition back of it all, no legitimate reason for not +holding fast to the compact she had made three years before with herself +to leave men--young, old, or middle-aged--out of her profession, what a +fool she would feel! She balanced the paths and her judgment for a second, +then decided in favor of the bargain. So Peter was left to the +ministrations of Saunders. + +That night the unexpected happened, unexpected as far as the sanitarium, +the superintendent of nurses, and Sheila O'Leary were concerned. How +unexpected it was to Peter depends largely on whether it was the result of +a decision on his part to stop coaxing existence--or a desire to escape +permanently from Saunders--or merely an accident. However, Sheila O'Leary +was called in the middle of the night, when she was sleeping so soundly +that it took the combined efforts of the superintendent and the head night +nurse to shake her awake. As she hurried into her uniform they gave her +the bare details. Somehow the doors of the sun-parlor had not been +fastened as usual, and a patient had stayed up there after lights were +out. He had tried to find his way to the lift, had slipped the fastenings +of the door in his effort to locate the bell, and had fallen four stories, +to the top of the lift itself. The whole accident was unbelievable, +unprecedented. They might find some plausible explanation in the +morning--but in the mean time the patient was in the operating-room and +Sheila O'Leary was to report at once for night duty. + +As the girl pinned on her cap the superintendent whispered the last +instructions: "You'll find him in Number Three, Surgical. It's one of your +fighting cases, Leerie, and it's Doctor Dempsy's patient. Remember, your +best work this time, girl, for all our sakes!" + +And it was a fighting case. Innumerable nights followed, all alike. The +temperature rose and fell a little, only to rise again; the pulse +strengthened and weakened by turns; delirium continued unbroken. As night +after night wore on and no fresh sign of internal injury developed, the +girl found herself forgetting the immediate condition of the patient and +going back to the thing that had brought him here. If she was right and he +was possessed by a fixed idea, the dread of some concrete thing or +experience, his delirium showed no evidence. It seemed more the delirium +of exhaustion than fever, and there was no raving. Consciousness, however, +might reveal what delirium hid, so, as the nights slipped monotonously by, +the girl found herself waiting with a growing eagerness for the man to +come back to himself. + +The waiting seemed interminable, but a time came at last when Sheila +slipped through the door of No. 3 and found a pair of deep-set, haunting +eyes turned full upon her. + +"It's--it's Leerie." The words came with some difficulty, but there was an +untold relief in Peter's voice. + +For a moment the girl was taken aback, but only for a moment. She laughed +him a friendly little laugh while she put her hand down to the hand that +was still too weak to reach out in greeting. "Yes. Oh yes, it's Leerie. +Been getting pretty well acquainted with you these weeks, but rather a +surprise to find it so--so mutual." + +"I got acquainted with you--beforehand," announced Peter. + +"I see--omnibus, Hennessy, and the swans." She laughed again softly. +"You've been away a long time; hope you're glad to get back." + +Peter reflected. "I'm afraid I'm not. But I'll not say it if it sounds too +much like a quitter." + +"No, say it and get it out of your system. Getting well always seems a +terrible undertaking; and the stronger you've been the harder it seems." +Sheila turned to her chart and preparations for the night. + +Lights out, she sat down by the open window to wait for Peter to sleep. An +hour passed, two hours, and sleep did not come. She fed him hot milk and +he still lay open-eyed, almost rigid, staring straight at the ceiling. At +midnight she stole out for her own supper in the diet-kitchen and found +him still awake when she returned, the haunting eyes looking more child's +than man's in the dimness of the night lamp. Had she been free to follow +her most vagrant impulse, she would have climbed on the head of the bed, +taken the bandaged head on her lap, and plunged into the most enthralling +tale of boy adventure her imagination could compass. But she hounded off +the impulse, after the fashion of treating all vagrants, and went back to +the window to wait and wonder. Peter was still awake when the gray of the +morning crept down the corridors of the Surgical. + +Sheila questioned Tyler, the day nurse, as she came off duty the next +evening, "Number Three sleep any to boast of?" + +"Why, no! Didn't he sleep well last night?" + +She gave a non-committal shrug and passed into the room. He was watching +for her coming, and a ghost of a smile flickered at the corners of his +mouth. She couldn't remember having seen even so much of a smile before. + +"It's--it's Leerie." He said it just as he had the night before. But there +was a strange, wistful appeal in the voice which set Sheila wondering +afresh. + +"Gorgeous night, full of stars, and air like wine. Smell the verbena and +thyme from the San gardens?" Sheila threw back her head and sniffed the +air like a wild thing. "Took me a month to trail that smell--be sure of +it. You only get it at night after a light rain. Take some long breaths of +it and you'll be asleep before lights are out." + +But he was not. He lay rigid as the night before, his eyes staring +straight before him. Sheila remembered a description she had read once of +a mountain guide who had been caught on the edge of a landslide and hung +for hours over the abyss, clutching a half-felled tree and trying to keep +awake until help came. The man she was nursing might almost be living +through such an agony of mind and body, afraid to yield up his +consciousness lest he should go plunging off into some horrible abyss. +What did he fear? Was it sleep? Was somnophobia what lay behind the +wrecking of this fine, clean manhood? The thing seemed incredible, and +yet--and yet-- + +Before dawn crept again into the Surgical, the mind of Sheila O'Leary was +made up. Peter was suddenly aware that the nurse was close at his bedside, +chafing the clenched fingers free. It was that mysterious hour that hangs +between the going night and coming day, the most non-resisting time for +body and mind, when the human will gives up the struggle if it gives it up +at all. And Sheila O'Leary, being well aware of this, rubbed the tense +nerves into a comfortable state of relaxation and talked. + +First she talked of the city, and found he was not city-born. Then she +talked of the country--of South, East, and West--and located his +birthplace in a small New England village. She talked of the outdoor +freedom of a country boy, of the wholesome work and fun on a farm with a +large family and good old-fashioned parents, and she found that he had +been an only child, motherless, with a family consisting of a +misanthropic, grief-stricken father and a hired girl. His voice sounded +toneless and more tired than ever as he spoke of his childhood. + +"Lonely?" queried Sheila. + +"Perhaps." + +"Neglected and--frightened?" + +"What do you mean?" + +The girl leaned over the bed and looked straight into the eyes that seemed +to be daring her to find the way into his darkness and at the same time +barring fast the door against her coming. She smiled gently. "Tell me--can +you remember when you first began to fear sleep?" + +There was no denial, no protest. Peter sighed as a little worn-out boy +might have sighed with the irksome concealment of some forbidden act. "I +don't know," he said at last. "I can't think back to a time when I wasn't +afraid--afraid of the dropping out, into the dark. God!" He turned his +head away, and for the first time in two weary, wakeful nights Sheila saw +him close his eyes. + +Off duty, instead of going to breakfast and bed, Sheila O'Leary went to +the office of the superintendent of nurses. In her usual fashion she came +straight to her point. "Put Saunders back on Number Three and give me a +couple of days off. Please, Miss Max." + +Her abruptness shook the almost unshakable calm of Miss Maxwell. She gazed +at the girl in frank amazement. "May I ask why?" There was a kindly irony +in the question. + +"Sounds queer, I know, but I've simply got to go. Lots depends on it, and +no time now to explain. Want to catch that eight-thirty-five; Flanders is +holding the bus. Tell you when I get back--please, Miss Max?" And taking +consent for granted, Sheila started for the door. + +There was an odd look on the face of the superintendent as she watched +her go--a look of amused, loving pride. She might hide it from their +little world, but she could not deny it to herself, that of all the girls +she had helped to train, none had come so close to her heart as this girl +with her wonderful insight, her honesty, her plain speaking, and her heart +of gold. A hundred times she had defied the rules of the sanitarium, had +swept the superintendent's dignity to the four winds. And she would +continue to do so, and they would continue to overlook it. Such petty +offenses are forgiven the Leeries the world over. And now, watching the +gray, alive figure climbing into the omnibus, Miss Maxwell had no mind to +resent her breach of discipline. She knew the girl had asked nothing for +herself; she had gone to do something for somebody who needed it, and she +would report for duty again when that was accomplished. + +And two days later, accordingly, she came, a luminous, ecstatic figure +that flew into the office with arms outstretched to swing the +superintendent almost off her feet in joyful triumph. "It _was_ just what +I thought! Found the girl--only she is an old woman now--got the whole +miserable story from her, and--and--I think--I think--Good heart alive! I +think I can pull him out of the beastly old hole!" + +"Meaning--? Remember, my dear, I haven't the grain of an idea why you +went, or where you went, or what the miserable story is about. Please +shine your lantern this way and light up my intelligence." Miss Maxwell +was beaming. + +Sheila O'Leary laughed. "I began by jumping at conclusions--same as I +always do--jumped at 'phobia in Number Three. Almost came and asked to be +put on the case after you told me. But he isn't Number Three any +more--he's a little boy named Peter--a little boy, almost a baby, +frightened night after night for years and years into lying still in the +dark under the eaves in a little attic room, deliberately frightened by a +hired girl who wanted to be free to go off gadding with her young man. I +got the place and her name from Peter--coaxed it out of him--and I made +her tell me the story. The father paid her extra wages to stay at night so +the little boy wouldn't be lonely and miss his mother too much, and she +didn't want him to find out she had gone. So she'd put Peter to bed and +tell him that if he stirred or cried out the walls would close in on +him--or the floor would swallow him up--or the ghosts would come out of +the corners and eat him up or carry him off. Can't you see him there, a +little quivering heap of a boy, awake in the dark, afraid to move? Can't +you feel how he would lie and listen to all the sounds about him--the +squealing mice, the creaking rafters, the wind moaning in the eaves--too +terrified to go to sleep? And when he did sleep--worn out--can't you +imagine what his dreams would be like? Oh, women like that--women who +could frighten little sensitive children--ought to be burned as they +burned the witches!" The girl's eyes blazed and she shook a pair of +clenched fists into the air. "And can you see the rest of it? How the fear +grew and grew even as the memory of the tales faded, grew into a nameless, +unexplainable fear of sleep? And because he was a boy he hid it; and +because he was a man he fought it; but the thing nailed him at last. He +fought sleep until he lost the habit of sleep. He couldn't get along +without it, and here he is!" + +"Well, what are you going to do?" The superintendent eyed her narrowly; +her cheeks were as flushed as the girl's. + +A little enigmatical smile curved up the corners of the usually demure +mouth. "Going to play Leerie--going to play it harder than I ever did in +my life before." + +And that night as Peter turned his head wearily toward the door to greet +the kindly, cumbersome Saunders, he found, to his surprise, the owner of +the shining eyes come back. He felt so ridiculously glad about it that he +couldn't even trust himself to tell her so. Instead he repeated foolishly +the same old thing, "Why, it's--it's Leerie!" + +When everything was ready for the night, Sheila turned the night-light out +and lowered the curtain until it was quite dark. Then she drew her chair +close to the bed and slipped her hand into the lean, clenched one on the +coverlid. "Don't think of me as a girl--a nurse--a person--at all, +to-night," she said, softly. "I'm just a piece of Stevenson's poem come to +life--a lamplighter for a little boy going to sleep all alone in a +farm-house attic. It's very dark. You can hear the mice squeal and the +rafters creak, if you listen, and the window's so small the stars can't +creep in. In the daytime the attic doesn't seem far away or very strange, +but at night it's miles--miles away from the rest of the house, and it's +full of things that may happen. That's why I'm here with my lamp." + +Sheila stopped a moment. She could hear the man's breath coming quick, +with a catch in it--a child breathes that way when it is fighting down a +cry or a sob. Then she went on: "Of course it's a magical lamp I carry, +and with the first sputter and spark it lights up and turns the attic +inside out--and there we are, the little boy and I, hand in hand, running +straight for the brook back of the house. The lamp burns as bright as the +sun now, so it seems like day--a spring day. It isn't the mice squealing +at all that you hear, but the birds singing and the brook running. There +are cowslips down by the brook, and 'Jacks.' Here by the big stone is a +chance to build a bully good dam and sailboats made out of the shingles +blown off from the barn roof. Want to stop and build it now?" + +"All right." There was almost a suppressed laugh in the voice; it +certainly sounded glad. And the hand on the coverlid was as relaxed as +that of a child being led somewhere it wants to go. + +Sheila smiled happily in the dark: "You must get stones, then--lots and +lots of them--and we'll pile them together. There's one stone--and two +stones--and three stones. Another stone here--another here--another +here--a big one there where the current runs swiftest, and little stones +for the chinks." + +According to Sheila O'Leary's best reckoning the dam was only half built +when the little boy fell fast asleep over his work. And when the gray of +the morning stole down the corridors of the Surgical, No. 3 was sleeping, +with one arm thrown over his head as little boys sleep, and the other +holding fast to the nurse on night duty. + +But it takes a long while to break down an old habit and build up a new +one, as it takes a long while to build a dam. No less than tons of stones +must have gone to the building of Peter's before the time came when he +could drop asleep alone and unguided. In all that time neither he nor the +girl ever spoke of what lay between the putting out of the night lamp and +the waking fresh and rested to a welcomed day. + +With sleep came speedy recovery, and Peter was the most popular +convalescent in the Surgical. His laugh had suddenly grown contagious, his +humor irresistible, his outlook on life so optimistically bubbling that +less cheery patients turned their wheel-chairs to No. 3 for revitalizing. +The chief came up with Doctor Dempsy from town, and both went away wearing +the look of men who have seen miracles. Life in its fullness had come to +Peter, the life he had dreamed of, as a lost crosser of the desert dreams +of water. Efficient work was to be his again, and companionship, and--yes, +for the first time he hoped for the third and best of life's +ingredients--he hoped for love. + +And then, just as everything looked best and brightest, he was told that +he no longer needed a night nurse. Sheila O'Leary was put on the case of +an old lady with chronic dyspepsia. She told him herself, as she went off +duty in the Surgical for the last time. + +"You've had the best sleep of all." She smiled at his efforts to pull +himself awake. "I'll drop in when I'm passing, to see how you're getting +on, but otherwise this is good-by and good luck." She held out her hand. + +"Why--but--Hang it all! I can't get along without a night nurse. And if I +don't need one, why can't you take Miss Tyler's place in the day?" + +"Orders." Sheila announced it as an unshakable fact. + +"I'll see Miss Maxwell." + +"No use. She wouldn't listen." + +"Guess if I'm paying for it I can have--" + +Sheila O'Leary's chin squared and her body stiffened. "There are some +things no one can pay for, Mr. Brooks." + +Peter colored crimson. He reached quickly for the hand Sheila had pulled +away. "What an ungrateful cur you must think I am! And I've never said a +word--never thanked you." + +"There was nothing to thank for. I was only undoing what another woman had +done long ago. That's one of the glad things about nursing; we so often +have a chance at just that sort of thing--the chance to make up for some +of the blind mistakes in life. Good-by. I'm late now." + +"But--but--" Peter held frantically to the hand. "'Pon my soul, I can't +let you go until--until--" He broke off, crimsoning again. "Promise a +time when you will come back--just a minute I can count on and look +forward to. Please!" + +"All right--I'll be back at four--just for a minute." + +It happened, however, that Miss Jacobs--pink-cheeked, auburn-haired, +green-eyed little Miss Jacobs, the first nurse on Peter's case, blew into +No. 3 a few minutes before four. She had developed the habit of blowing in +at least once in the day and telling Peter how perfectly splendid it was +to see him getting along so well. But as he did not happen to look quite +so well this time, she condoled and wormed the reason out of Peter. + +"Leerie off duty! Don't you think it's rather remarkable they let her stay +so long? Of course the management, as a rule, doesn't let her have cases +of--of this kind. A girl who's been sent away on account +of--of--questionable conduct isn't exactly safe to trust. Don't you think +so? And the San can't afford to risk its reputation." For an instant the +green eyes shimmered and glistened balefully, while she tossed her auburn +curls coyly at Peter. "It's really too bad, for she's a wonderful surgical +nurse. All the best surgeons want her on their cases. That's why they put +her on with you; that's really why they let her come back at all." + +A look in Peter's eyes stopped her and made her look back over her +shoulder. Sheila O'Leary stood in the open doorway. For an instant the +perpetual assurance of Miss Jacobs was shaken, but only for an instant. +She smiled tolerantly. "Hello, Leerie! I've been telling Mr. Brooks what a +wonderful surgical nurse you are." + +The gray eyes of the girl in the doorway looked steadily into the green +eyes of the girl by the bed. "Thank you, Coppy, I heard you." And she +stepped aside to let the other pass out. + +"Well?" she asked when the two were alone. + +"Well!" answered Peter, emphatically. "Everything is very, very well. Do +you know," and he smiled up at her like a happy small boy--"do you know +that all the while you were building that dam I was building something +else?" + +"Were you?" + +"I was building my life over again--building it fresh, with the fear gone +and everything sound and strong and fine. And into the chinks where all +the miserable empty places had been--the places where loneliness and +heartache eternally leaked through--I was fitting love, the love I never +dared dream of." + +"Yes?" + +The girl's lips looked strangely hard--almost bitter, Peter thought; and +this time he reached out both arms to her. + +"Hang it all! It's tough on a man who's never dared dream of love to have +it take him, bandaged and tied to his bed. Leerie--Leerie! You wouldn't +have the heart to blow out the lamp now, would you?" + +The lips softened, she gave a sad little shake of her head. "No, but +you've got to keep it burning yourself. You're a man; you can do it. +Sorry--can't help it. And please don't say anything more. Don't spoil it +all, and make me say things I wish I hadn't and send you off to pay your +bill and leave the San to-night." She smiled wistfully. "Dear, grown-up +boy! Don't you know that it's the customary thing for a man to think he's +fallen in love with his nurse when he's convalescing? Just get well and +forget it--as all the others do." She turned toward the door. + +"I'm not going to pay my bill to-night, and I'm not going to forget it. I +guess all those chinks haven't been filled up yet. I'm going to stay until +they are. Good plan, don't you think?" And Peter Brooks smiled like a man +who had never been given up--nor ever intended giving up, now that life +had given him back the things for which he had a right to fight. + + + + +Chapter II + +OLD KING COLE + + +Hennessy was feeding the swans. Sheila O'Leary leaned over the sill of the +diminutive rustic rest-house and watched him with a tired contentment. She +had just come off a neurasthenic case--a week of twenty-four-hour +duty--and she wanted to stretch her cramped sensibilities in the quiet +peace of the little house and invite her soul with a glimpse of Hennessy +and the swans. + +All about her the grounds of the sanitarium were astir with its customary +crowd of early-summer-afternoon patients. How those first warm days called +the sick folks out-of-doors and held them there until the last beam of +sunshine had disappeared behind the foremost hill! The tennis-courts were +full; the golf-links were dotted about with spots of color like a cubist +picture; pairs of probationers, arm in arm, were strolling about, enjoying +a comparative leisure; old Madam Courot was at her customary place under +the juniper, watching the sun go down. Three years! Nothing seemed changed +in all that time but the patients--and not all of these, as Madame Courot +silently testified. The pines shook themselves above the rest-house in the +same lazy, vagabond fashion, the sun purpled the far hills and spun the +same yellow haze over the links, the wind brought its habitual afternoon +accompaniment of cow-bells from the sanitarium farm, and Hennessy threw +the last crumb of bread to Brian Boru, the gray swan, as he had done for +the fifteen years Sheila could remember. + +She folded her arms across the sill and rested her chin on them. How good +it was to be back at the old San, to settle down to its kindly, +comfortable ways and the peace of its setting after the feverish +restlessness of city hospitals! She remembered what Kipling had said, that +the hill people who came down to the plains were always hungering to get +back to the hills again. That was the way she had felt about it--always a +hunger to come back. For months and months she had thought that she might +forever have to stay in those hospitals, have to make up her mind to the +eternal plains--and then had come her reprieve--she had been called back +to the San and the work she loved best. + +Had the place been any other than the sanitarium, and the person any other +than Sheila O'Leary, this would never have happened. For she had left +under a cloud, and in similar cases a cloud, once gathered, grows until it +envelops, suffocates, and finally annihilates the person. As a graduate +nurse she would have ceased to exist. But in spite of the most blighting +circumstances, those who counted most believed in her and trusted her. +They had only waited for time to forget and tongues to stop wagging, and +then they had called her back. Perhaps the strangest thing about it was +that Sheila did not look like a person who could have had even the +smallest, fleeciest of clouds brushing her most distant horizon. In fact, +so vital, warm, and glowing was her personality, so radiant her nature, +that she seemed instead a permanent dispeller of clouds. + +From across the pond Hennessy watched her with adoring eyes as he gave his +habitual, final bang to the bread-platter and the hitch to his corduroys +preparatory to leaving. To his way of thinking, there was no nurse +enrolled on the books of the old San who could compare with her. In the +beginning he had prophesied great things of her to Flanders, the +bus-driver. "Ye mind what I'm tellin' ye," he had said. "Afore she's +finished her trainin' she'll have more lads a-dandtherin' round her than +if she'd been the King of Ireland's only daughter. Ye can take my word for +it, when she leaves here, 'twill be a grand home of her own she'll be +goin' to an' no dirty hospital." + +That had been three years ago, and Hennessy sighed now over the utter +futility of his words. "Sure, who could have been seein' that one o' the +lads would have turned blackguard? Hennessy knows. Just give the lass time +for that hurt to heal, an' she'll be winnin' a home of her own, after +all." This he muttered to himself as he took the path leading toward the +rest-house. + +Sheila saw him coming, his lips shirred to the closeness of some emotional +strain. "Hello, Hennessy! What's troubling?" she called down the path. + +"Faith, it's Mr. Peter Brooks that's troublin'. 'Tis a week, now, that +ye've been off that case--an' he's near cured. Another week now--" + +"In another week he'll be going back to his work--and I'll be very glad." + +Hennessy eyed the girl narrowly. "Will ye, then? Why did ye cure him up so +fast for, Miss Leerie? Why didn't ye give the poor man a chance?" + +No one but Hennessy would have had sufficient temerity for such a +question, but had any one dared to ask it, upon their heads would have +fallen the combined anger and bitterness of Sheila's tongue. For having +had occasion once for bitterness, it was not over-hard to waken it when +men served as topics. But at Hennessy she smiled tolerantly. "Didn't I +give him a chance to get well? That was all he needed or wanted. And, now +he's well, he'll go about his business." + +"Faith," and Hennessy closed a suggestive eye, "that depends on what he +takes to be his business. In my young days the choosin' an' courtin' of a +wife was the big part of a man's business. Now if he comes round askin' my +opinion--" + +"Tell him, Hennessy"--and Sheila fixed him firmly with a glance--"that +the sanitarium does not encourage its cured patients to hang about +bothering its nurses. It is apt to make trouble for the nurses. +Understand?" + +Again Hennessy closed one eye; then he laughed. "When ye talk of devils +ye're sure to smell brimstone. There comes Mr. Brooks now, an' he has his +head back like a dog trailin' the wind." + +The girl turned and followed Hennessy's jerking thumb with her eyes. +Across the pine grove, coming toward them, was a young man above medium +height, square-shouldered and erect. There was nothing startlingly +handsome nor remarkable about his appearance; he was just nice, strong, +clean-looking. He waved to the two by the rest-house. + +"And do ye mind his looks when he came!" Hennessy's tone denoted wonder +and admiration. + +"A human wreck--haunted at that." There was a good deal more than mere +professional interest in Sheila's tone; there was pride and something +else. It was past Hennessy's perceptive powers to define what, but he +noticed it, nevertheless, and looked sharply up at the girl. + +"For the love o' Mike, Miss Leerie! Why can't ye stop ticketin' each man +as a case an' begin thinkin' about them human-like? Ye might begin +practisin' wi' Mr. Brooks." + +The line of Sheila's lips became fixed; the chin that could look so +demure, the eyes that could look so soft and gentle, both backed up the +lips in an expression of inscrutable hardness. + +"In the name of your patron saint, Hennessy, what have you said to Miss +Leerie to turn her into that sphinx again?" The voice of Peter Brooks was +as nice as his appearance. + +Hennessy looked foolish. "I was tellin' her, then," he moistened his lips +to allow a safer emigration of words--"I was tellin' her--that the gray +swan had the rheumatism in his left leg, an' I was askin' her, did she +think Doctor Willum would prescribe a thermo bath for him. I'd best be +askin' him meself, maybe," and with a sudden pull at his forelock Hennessy +backed away down the path. + +Peter Brooks watched him depart with an admiration equal to that with +which Hennessy had welcomed him. "That man has a wonderful insight into +human nature. Now I was just wishing I could have you all alone for +about--" + +Sheila interrupted him. "I hope you weren't counting on too many minutes. +I can see Miss Maxwell coming down the San steps, and I have a substantial +feeling that she's looking for me to put me on another case." + +"Couldn't we escape? Couldn't we skip round by the farm to the garage and +get my car? You look fagged out. A couple of hours' ride would do wonders +for you, and--Good Lord! The San can run that long without your services. +What do you say? Shall we beat it?" + +With a telltale, pent-up eagerness he noticed the girl's indecision and +flung himself with all his persuasive powers to turn the balance in his +favor. "Do come. You can work better and harder for a little time off now +and then. All the other nurses take it. Why under the heavens can't a man +ever persuade you to have a little pleasure?" Something in Sheila's face +stopped him and prompted the one argument that could have persuaded her. +"If you'll only come, Leerie, I'll promise to keep dumb--absolutely dumb. +I'll promise not to spoil the ride for you." + +Sheila flung him a radiant smile; it almost unbalanced him and murdered +his resolve. "Then I'll come. You're the first man I ever knew who could +keep his word--that way. Hurry! we'll have to run for it." And taking the +lead, she ducked through the little door of the rest-house and ran, +straight as the crow flies, to the hiding shelter of the farm. + +But her premonition was correct. When she returned two hours later in the +cool of a summer's twilight, with eyes that sparkled like iridescent pools +and lips that smiled generously her gratitude to the man who could keep +his word, she found the superintendent of nurses watching from the San +steps for their car. + +"All right, Miss Maxwell," she nodded in response to the question that was +plainly stamped on the superintendent's face. "We've had supper--don't +even have to change my uniform." Then to Peter, "Thank you." + +The words were meager enough, but Peter Brooks had already received his +compensation in the girl's glowing face. "It's 'off again, on again, gone +again,' in your profession, too. Well, here's looking forward to the next +escape." His laugh rang with health and good spirits. + +Sheila stopped on her way up the steps, turned and looked back at him. The +wonder of his recovery often surprised even herself. It seemed incredible +that this pulsing, vitalized portion of humanity could have once been a +veritable husk, hounded by a haunting fear into a state of hopelessness +and loathing of existence. Life certainly tingled in Peter now, and every +time Sheila felt it, man or no man, she could not help rejoice with all +her heart at the thing she had helped to do. + +Peter's smile met hers half-way in the dusk. "It may be another week +before I see you again. In case--I'd like to tell you that I'm staying on +indefinitely. The chief has pushed me out of my Sunday section and has +sent me a lot of special articles to do up here. He thinks I had better +not come back until I'm all fit." + +"You're perfectly fit now." There was a brutal frankness in the girl's +words. + +Peter had grown used to these moments. They no longer troubled or hurt +him. He had begun to understand. "Maybe I am; I feel so, but you can never +tell. Then there's always the danger of one's heart going back on one. +That's why I've decided to stay on and coddle mine. Rather good plan?" + +Sheila O'Leary vouchsafed no answer. She disappeared through the entrance +of the sanitarium, leaving Peter Brooks still smiling. Neither his +expression nor position had changed a few seconds later when Miss Jacobs +touched him on the arm. + +"Oh, Mr. Brooks! Were you the guilty party--running away with Leerie? For +the last two hours we've been combing the San grounds for her." The green +eyes of the flirtatious nurse gleamed peculiarly catlike in the dusk. "Of +course I don't suppose my opinion counts so very much with you," there was +a honeyed, self-deprecatory quality in the girl's tone, "but if I were +you, I wouldn't go about so awfully much with Leerie. She's a dear girl--I +don't suppose it's really her fault--but she had such a record. And you +know it's my creed that girls of that kind can compromise poor men far +oftener than men compromise girls. Oh, I do hope you understand what I +mean!" + +Peter still wore a smile, but it was a different smile. It was as much +like the old one as a search-light is like sunshine. He focused it full on +Miss Jacobs's face. "I'm a shark at understanding. And don't worry about +me. I'm more of a shark in deep water with--with sirens." He chuckled +inwardly at the look of blank incomprehension on the nurse's face. "By the +way, just what did you want Miss Leary for? Not another accident?" + +The girl gave her head a disgusted toss. "Oh, they want her to help an old +man die. He came up here a week ago. I saw him then, and he looked ready +to burst. Doctor MacByrn said he weighed over three hundred and had a +blood pressure of two hundred and ten. They can't bring it down, and his +heart is about done for. Leerie always gets those dying cases. Ugh!" The +girl shuddered. "Guess they wouldn't put me on any of those sure-dead +cases; it's bad enough when you happen on them." + +Peter shot her a pitying glance and walked back to his car. He was just +climbing in when the girl's voice chirped back to him. "Just the night +for a ride, isn't it? I couldn't think of letting you go all alone and be +lonesome. Isn't it lucky I'm off duty till ten!" + +"Lucky for the patient!" Peter mumbled under his breath; then aloud: +"Sorry, but I'm unlucky. Only enough gasoline to get her back to the +garage. Good night." He swung the car free of the curb, leaving little +red-headed, green-eyed Miss Jacobs in the process of gathering up her +skirts and mounting into thin air. + +Meanwhile Sheila had followed the superintendent to her office. "It's a +case of cerebral hemorrhages. The man is no fool; he knows his condition, +and he's been getting increasingly hard to take care of every minute since +he found out. Maybe you've heard of him. He's Brandle, the coal magnate. +Quite alone in the world; no children, and his wife died some few years +ago. He's very peculiar, and no one seems to know what to say to him or do +for him. I'm a little afraid--" and the superintendent paused to consider +her words before committing herself. "I think perhaps there have been too +many offers of prayers and scriptural readings for his taste." + +"Probably he'd prefer the last _Town Topics_ or the latest detective +story." Sheila shook her head violently. "Why can't a man be allowed to +die the way he chooses--instead of your way, or my way, or the Reverend +Mr. Grumble's way?" + +"Miss Barry is on the case now, and I'm afraid he's shocked her into--" + +"Perpetual devotion." Sheila grinned sympathetically as she completed the +sentence. They had called her Prayer-Book Barry her probation year because +of her unswerving religious point of view, and her years of training had +only served to increase it. The picture of anything as sensitively pious +as Prayer-Book Barry helping a coal magnate to depart this temporal world +in his own chosen fashion was too much for Sheila's sense of the +grotesque. She threw back her head and laughed. Peal after peal rang out +and over the transom of the superintendent's office just as Miss Jacobs +passed. + +It took no great powers of penetration to identify the laugh; a look of +satisfaction crept into the green eyes. "Quite dramatic and brutally +unfeeling I call it," she murmured. "But it will make an entertaining +story to tell Mr. Brooks. He thinks Leerie is such a little tinseled +saint." + +Ten minutes later Sheila O'Leary followed Miss Maxwell into the large +tower room of the sanitarium to relieve Miss Barry from duty. As she took +her first look from the doorway she almost forgot herself and laughed +again. The room might have been a scene set for a farce or a comic opera. + +Propped up in bed, with multitudinous pillows about him, was a very +mammoth of a man in heliotrope-silk pajamas. His face was as round and +full and bucolic as a poster advertising some specific brew of beer. +Surmounting the face was a sparse fringe of white hair standing erect, +while an isolated lock mounted guard over a receding forehead. It was +evident that the natural expression of the face was good-natured, +indulgent, easygoing, but at the moment of Sheila's entrance it was +contorted into something that might have served for a cartoon of a +choleric full moon. The eyes were rolling frantically in every direction +but that from which the presumable infliction came, for seated at the +bedside, with a booklet of evening prayer open on her lap, was Miss Barry, +reading aloud in a sweet, gentle voice. + +Miss Barry did not stop until she had finished her paragraph. The +cessation of her voice brought the roving eyes to a standstill; then they +flew straight to Miss Maxwell in abject appeal. "Take it away, ma'am. +Don't hurt it--but take it away!" The articulation was thick, but it did +not mask the wail in the voice, and a gigantic thumb jerked indicatively +toward the patient, asserting figure of Miss Barry. + +"All right, Mr. Brandle." Miss Maxwell's tone showed neither conciliation +nor pity; it was plainly matter-of-fact. "As it happens, I've brought you +a new nurse. Suppose you try Miss O'Leary for the next day or two." + +The wail broke out afresh: "How can I tell if I can stand her? They all +look alike--all of 'em. You're the fourth, ain't you?" He turned to the +nurse at his bedside for corroboration. + +"Then I'm the fifth," announced Sheila, "and there's luck in odd numbers." + +"Five's my number." The mammoth man looked a fraction less distracted as +he stated this important fact. "Born fifth day of the fifth month, struck +it rich when I was twenty-five, married in 'seventy-five, formed the +American Coal Trust December fifth, eighteen ninety-five. How's that for a +number?" + +"And I'm twenty-five, and this is June fifth." Sheila smiled. + +"Say, honest?" A glimmer of cheerfulness filtered through. The man +beckoned the superintendent of nurses closer and whispered in a perfectly +audible voice: "Can't you take it away now? I'd like to ask the other some +questions before you leave her for keeps." + +Miss Maxwell nodded a dismissal to the nurse who had been, and called +Sheila to the bedside. "Look her over well, Mr. Brandle. Miss O'Leary +isn't a bit sensitive." + +"O'Leary? That's not a bad name. Had a shaft boss up at my first +anthracite-mine by that name--got on with him first-class. Say"--this +direct to Sheila--"can you pray?" + +"Not unless I have to." + +"Not a bad answer. Now what--er--form of--literatoore do you prefer?" + +"Things with pep--punch--go!" + +"Say, shake." The mammoth man smiled as he held out a giant fist. Sheila +had the feeling she was shaking hands with some prehistoric animal. It was +almost repellent, and she had to summon all her sympathy and control to be +able to return the shake with any degree of cordiality. + +"All right, ma'am. You can leave us now to thrash it out man to man. You'd +better get back to managing your little white angels," and he swept a +dismissing hand toward Miss Maxwell and the door. + +Oddly enough, there was nothing rude nor affronting in the man's words. +There was too much of underlying good nature to permit it. With the +closing of the door behind the superintendent he turned to Sheila. "Now, +boss, we might as well understand each other--it'll save strikes or hurt +feelings. Eh?" + +Sheila nodded. + +"All right. I'm dying, and I know it. May burst like a paper bag or go up +like a penny balloon any minute. Now praying won't keep me from bursting a +second sooner, or send me up a foot higher, so cut it out." + +Again Sheila nodded. + +"That isn't all. Had two nurses who agreed, kept their word, but they +hadn't the nerve to keep the parson from praying, and when he was off duty +they just sat--twiddled their thumbs and waited for me to quit. Couldn't +stand that--got on my nerves something fearful." + +"Wanted to murder them, didn't you?" Sheila laughed. "Well, Mr. Brandle, +suppose we begin with supper and the baseball news. After that we'll hunt +up a thriller--biggest thriller they've got in the book-store." + +"You're boss," was the answer, but a look of relief--almost of +contentment--spread over the rubicund face. + +As Sheila was leaving for the supper-tray she paused. "How would you like +company for supper?" + +"Company? Good Lord, not the parson!" + +"No, me. If you are willing to sign for two, I could bring my supper up +with yours." + +"And not eat alone! By Jehoshaphat! Give me that slip quick." + +They had not only a good supper, they had a noisy one. The coal magnate +roared over Sheila's descriptions of some of the bath treatments and their +victims. In the midst of one particularly noisy explosion he suddenly +stopped and looked accusingly at her. "Why don't you stop me? Don't you +know doctor's orders? Had 'em dinged into my head until I could say 'em +backwards: no exertion, no excitement, avoid all undue movement, keep +quiet. Darn it all! As if I won't have to keep quiet long enough! +Well--why don't you repeat those fool orders and keep me quiet?" + +Sheila looked at him with a pair of steady gray eyes. "Do you know, Mr. +Brandle, it isn't a half-bad way to go out of this world--to go laughing." + +The mammoth man beamed. He looked for all the world like the full moon +suddenly grown beatific. "And I'd just about made up my mind that I'd +never find a blamed soul who would feel that way about it. Shake again, +boss." + +After the baseball news and a fair start in the thriller, he indulged +further in past grievances. "Hadn't any more'n settled it for sure I was +done for than the parson came and the nurse took to looking mournful. Lord +Almighty! ain't it bad enough to be carted off in a hearse once without +folks putting you in beforehand? That's not my notion of dying. I lived +pleasant and cheerful, and by the Lord Harry, I don't see why I can't die +that way! And look-a-here, boss, I don't want any of that repenting stuff. +I don't need no puling parson to tell me I'm a sinner. Any idiot couldn't +look at me without guessing that much. Say!" He leaned forward with sudden +earnestness. "Take a good look at me yourself. See any halo or angel +trappings about me?" + +Sheila laughed. "I'm afraid not. What you really ought to have--what I +miss about you--is the pipe, and the bowl, and the fiddlers three." + +"What do you mean by that?" + +"Don't you remember? It's an old nursery rhyme; probably you heard it +hundreds of times when you were a little boy: + + "Old King Cole was a merry old soul + And a merry old soul was he. + He called for his pipe and he called for his bowl, + And he called for his fiddlers three." + +The coal magnate threw back his head on the pillows and laughed long and +loud. He laughed until he grew purple and gasped for breath, and he +laughed while he choked, and Sheila flew about for stimulants. For a few +breathless moments Sheila thought she had whipped up the hearse--to use +the mammoth man's own metaphor--but after a panting half-hour the heart +subsided and the breath came easier. + +"You nearly did for me that time, boss. But it fits; Jehoshaphat, it fits +me like a B. V. D.! The only difference you might put down to simplified +spelling. Eh?" And he cautiously chuckled at his joke. + +While Sheila was making ready for the night he chuckled and lapsed into +florid, heliotrope studies by turns. "It's straight, what I told you about +being a sinner," he gave verbal expression to his thoughts at last. +"That's why I don't leave a cent to charity--not a cent. Ain't going to +have any peaked-faced, oily-tongued jackasses saying over my coffin that I +tried to buy my entrance ticket into the Lord Almighty's kingdom. No, +sirree! I know I've lived high, eaten well, and drunk some. I've made the +best of every good bargain that came within eyeshot. I treated my own +handsome--and I let the rest of the world go hang. Went to church Easter +Sunday every year and put a bill in the plate; you can figure for yourself +about how much I've given to charity. Never had any time to think of it, +anyway--probably wouldn't have given if I had. Always thought Mother'd +live longer'n me and she'd take care of that end of it. But she didn't." + +For a moment Sheila thought the man was going to cry; his lower lip +quivered like a baby's, and his eyes grew red and watery. There was no +denying it, the man was a caricature; even his grief was ludicrous. He +wiped his eyes with the back of his heliotrope sleeve and finished what he +had to say. "Don't it beat all how the pious vultures croak over you the +minute you're done for--reminding you you can't take your money away with +you? Didn't the parson--first time he came--sit in that chair and open up +and begin about the rich man's squeezing through a needle's eye and a lot +about putting away temporal stuff? I don't aim to do any squeezing into +heaven, I can tell you. And I fixed him all right. Ha, ha! I told him as +long as the money wouldn't do me and Mother any more good I'd settle it +so's it couldn't benefit any one else. And that's exactly what I've done. +Left it all for a monument for us, fancy marble, carved statues, and the +whole outfit. It'll beat that toadstool-looking tomb of that prince +somewhere in Asia all hollow. Ha, ha!" + +He leaned back to enjoy to the full this humorous legacy to himself, but +the expression of Sheila's face checked it. "Say, boss, you don't like +what I've done, do you? Run it out and dump it; I can stand for straight +talk from you." + +Sheila felt repelled even more than she had at first. To have a man at the +point of death throw his money into a heap of marble just to keep it from +doing good to any one seemed horrible. And yet the man spoke so +consistently for himself. He had lived in the flesh and for the flesh all +his days; it was not strange that there was no spirit to interpret now for +him or to give him the courage to be generous in the face of what the +world would think. + +"It's yours to spend as you like--only--I hate monuments. Rather have the +plain green grass over me. And don't you think it's queer yourself that a +man who had the grit to make himself and a pile of money hasn't the grit +to leave it invested after he goes, instead of burying it? Supposing you +can't live and use it yourself! That's no reason for not letting your +money live after you. I'd want to keep my money alive." + +"Alive? Say, what do you mean?" + +"Just what I say--alive. Charity isn't the only way to dispose of it. +Leave it to science to discover something new with; give it to the +laboratories to study up typhoid or cancer. Ever think how little we know +about them?" + +"Why should I? I don't owe anything to science." + +"Yes, you do. What developed the need of coal--what gave you the +facilities for removing it from your mines? Don't tell me you or anybody +else doesn't owe something to science." + +"Bosh!" And the argument ended there. + +The old man had a good night. He dozed as peacefully as if he had not +required propping up and occasional hypodermics to keep his lungs and +heart going properly, and when the house doctor made his early rounds this +sad and shocking spectacle met his eye: the dying coal magnate, arrayed +in a fresh and more vivid suit of heliotrope pajamas, smoking a brierwood +and keeping a violent emotional pace with the hero in the thrillingest +part of the thriller. Even Sheila's cheeks were tinged with excitement. + +"Miss O'Leary!" All the outraged sensibilities of an orthodox, +conscientious young house physician were plainly manifested in those two +words. + +Out shot the brierwood like a projectile, and a giant finger wagged at the +intruder. "Look-a-here, young man, the boss and I are running +this--er--quitting game to suit ourselves, and we don't need no +suggestions from the walking delegate, or the board of directors, or the +gang. See? Now if you can't say something pleasant and cheerful, get out!" + +"Good morning!" It was the best compromise the house physician could make. +But ten minutes after his speedy exit Doctor Greer, the specialist, and +Miss Maxwell were on the threshold, both looking unmistakably troubled. + +The coal magnate winked at Sheila. "Here comes the peace delegates--or +maybe it's from the labor union. Well, sir?" This was shot straight at +the doctor. + +"Mr. Brandle, you're mad. I refuse to take any responsibility." + +"Don't have to. That's what's been the matter--too much responsibility. It +got on my nerves. Now we want to be as--as noisy and as happy as we can, +the boss and me. And if we can't do it in this little old medicated +brick-pile of yours, why, we'll move. See? Or I'll buy it with a few tons +of my coal and give it to the boss to run." + +"When it's yours." The specialist was finding it hard to keep his temper. +The man had worn him out in the week he had been at the sanitarium. It had +been harder to manage him than a spoiled child or a lunatic. He had had to +humor him, cajole him, entreat him, in a way that galled his professional +dignity, and now to have the man deliberately and publicly kill himself in +this fashion was almost beyond endurance. He tried hard to make his voice +sound agreeable as well as determined when he launched his ultimatum. "But +in the mean time Miss O'Leary will have to be removed from the case." + +"No, you don't!" With a sweep of the giant hand the bedclothes were jerked +from their roots, and a pair of heliotrope legs projected floorward. It +took the strength of all the three present to hold him back and replace +the covering. The magnate sputtered and fumed. "First nurse you put on +here after the boss goes--I'll die on her hands in ten minutes just to get +even with you. That's what I'll do. And what's more--I'll come back to +haunt the both of you. Take away my boss--just after we get things going +pleasantly. Spoil a poor man's prospects of dying cheerful! Haven't you +any heart, man? And you, ma'am?" this to the superintendent of nurses. "By +the Lord Harry! you're a woman--you ought to have a little sympathy!" The +aggressiveness died out of the voice, and it took on the old wail Sheila +had first heard. + +"But you forget my professional responsibility in the matter--my +principles as an honorable member of my profession. I cannot allow a +patient of mine wilfully to endanger his life--even shorten it. You must +understand that, Mr. Brandle." + +A look of amused toleration spread over the rubicund face. "Bless your +heart, sonny, you're not allowing me to shorten it one minute. The boss +and I are prolonging it first-rate. Shouldn't wonder if it would get to be +so pleasant having her around I'd be working over union hours and +forgetting to quit at all. I'm old enough to be your granddaddy, so take a +bit of advice from me. When you can't cure a patient, let 'em die their +own way. Now run along, sonny. Good morning, ma'am." And then to Sheila: +"Get back to that locked door, the three bullet-holes, and the blood patch +on the floor. I've got to know what's on the other side before I touch one +mouthful of that finnan haddie you promised me for breakfast." + +After that Old King Cole had his way. The doctors visited him as a matter +of form, and Sheila improvised a chart, for he would not stand for having +temperatures taken or pulses counted. "Cut it out, boss, cut it all out. +We're just going to have a good time, you and me." And he smiled +seraphically as he drummed on the spread: + + "Old King Cole--diddy-dum-diddy-dum, + Was a merry old soul--diddy-dum-diddy-dum." + +On the second day Sheila introduced Peter Brooks into the +"Keeping-On-Going Syndicate," as the mammoth man termed their temporary +partnership. Sheila had to take some hours off duty, and as the coal +magnate absolutely refused to let another nurse cross his threshold, Peter +seemed to be the only practical solution. She knew the two men would get +on admirably. Peter could be counted on to understand and meet any +emergency that might arise, while Old King Cole would be kept content. And +Sheila was right. + +"Say, we hit it off first-rate--ran together as smooth as a parcel o' +greased tubs," the magnate confided to Sheila when she returned. "He told +me a whole lot about you--what you did for him--and the nickname they'd +given you--'Leerie.' I like that, but I like my name for you better. Eh, +boss?" + +Once admitted, Peter often availed himself of his membership in the +syndicate. He made a third at their games, turned an attentive ear to the +thriller or added his bit to the enlightenment of the conversation. And +there wasn't a topic from war to feminine-dress reform that they did not +attack and thrash out among them with all the keenness and thoroughness +of three alive and original minds. + +"Puts me thinking of the days when I was switch boss at the Cassie Maguire +Mine. Nothing but a shaver then, working up; nothing to do in the +God-forsaken hole, after work, but talk. We just about settled the affairs +of the world and gave the Lord Almighty advice into the bargain." The +mammoth man laughed a mammoth laugh. "And when we'd talked ourselves +inside out we'd have some fiddling--always a fiddle among some of the +boys. Never hear one of those old tunes that it don't take me back to the +Cassie Maguire and the way a fiddle would play the heart back into a +lonely, homesick shaver." He turned with a suspicious sniff to Sheila. +"Come, boss, the chessboard. Peter'n'me are going to have another Verdun +set-to. Only this time he's German. See? And if you don't mind, you might +fill up our pipes and bring us our four-forty bowl." + +At one time of the day only did the merriment flag--that was at dusk. +"Don't like it--never did like it," he confessed. "Something about it that +gets onto my chest and turns me gloomy. Don't suppose you ever smelled +the choke-damp, did you? Well, that's the feeling. Say, boss, wouldn't be +a bad plan to shine up that old safety of yours and give us more light in +the old pit. Mother quit about this time o' day, and it seems like I can't +forget it." + +The next day the coal magnate took a turn for the worse. The heart +specialist and the house doctor glowered ominously at Sheila as they came +to make their unwelcome rounds, and Sheila hurried them out of the room as +speedily as she could. Then it was that she thought of the fiddlers three. +An out-of-town orchestra played biweekly at the sanitarium. They were +young men, most of them, still apprentices at their art, and she knew they +would be glad enough for extra earnings. They were due that evening, and +she would engage the services of three violins for the dusk hour the old +man dreaded. She did not accomplish this without a protest from the +business office, warnings from the two physicians, and shocked comments +from the habitual gossips of the sanitarium. But Sheila held her ground +and fought for her way against their combined attacks. "Of course I know +he's dying. Don't care if the whole San faints with mortification. I'm +going to see he dies the way he wants to--keep it merry till the end." + +To the Reverend Mr. Grumble, who requested--nay, demanded--admittance, she +turned a deaf ear while she held the door firmly closed behind her. "Can't +come in. Sorry, he doesn't want you. If you must say a last prayer to +comfort yourself, say it in some other room. It will do Old King Cole just +as much good and keep him much happier. Now, please go!" + +So it happened that only Peter was present when the musicians arrived. +Sheila ushered them in with a flourish. "Old King Cole, your fiddlers +three. Now what shall they play?" + +Lucky for the indwellers of the sanitarium that the magnate's room was in +the tower and therefore little sound escaped. It is improbable if the +final ending would ever have been known to any but those present, whose +discretion could have been relied upon, but for the fact that Miss Jacobs +stood with her ear to the keyhole for fully ten minutes. It was surprising +how quickly everybody knew about it after that. It created almost as much +scandal as Sheila's own exodus had three years before. Many had the +temerity to take the lift to the third floor and pace with attentive ears +the corridor that led to the tower. These came back to fan the flame of +shocked excitement below. The doctors and Mr. Grumble came to Miss Maxwell +to interfere and put an end to this ungodly and unprofessional humoring of +one departing soul. But the superintendent of nurses refused. She had put +the case in Sheila's hands, and she had absolute faith in her. So all that +was left to the busybodies and the scandalmongers was to hear what they +could and give free rein to their tongues. + +There was, however, one mitigating fact: they could listen, and they could +talk, but they could not look beyond the closed door of the tower room. +That vivid, appalling picture was mercifully denied them. With a heaping +bowl of egg-nog beside him, and his brierwood between his lips, the coal +magnate beat time on the bedspread with a fast-failing strength, while he +grinned happily at Sheila. Beside him Peter lounged in a wheel-chair, +smoking for company, while grouped about the foot of the bed in the +attitude of a small celestial choir stood the fiddlers three. + +All the good old tunes, reminiscent of younger days of mining-camps and +dance-halls, they played as fast as fingers could fly and bows could +scrape. "Dan Tucker," "Money Musk," "The Irish Washerwoman," and "Pop Goes +the Weasel" sifted in melodic molecules through the keyhole into the +curious and receptive ears outside. And after them came "Captain Jinks" +and "The Blue Danube," "Yankee Doodle" and "Dixie." + +"Some boss!" muttered the magnate, thickly, the brierwood dropping on the +floor. "Just one solid streak of anthracite--clear through. Now give us +something else--I don't care--you choose it, boss." + +So Leerie chose "The Star-spangled Banner" and "Marching Through Georgia," +and as dusk crept closer about them, "Suwanee River" and "The Old Kentucky +Home." + +"Nice, sleepy old tunes," mumbled the coal magnate. "Guess I've napped +over-time." He opened one eye and looked at Sheila, half amused, half +puzzled. "Say, boss, light up that little old lamp o' yours and take me +down; the shaft's growing pretty black." + +The fiddlers played a hymn as their own final contribution. Sheila smiled +wistfully across the dusk to Peter. She knew it wouldn't matter now, for +Old King Cole was passing beyond the reach of hymns, prayers, or +benedictions. + +"It's over as far as you or I or he are concerned," she whispered, +whimsically. "When I come down, by and by, would you very much mind taking +me on one of those rides you promised? I want to forget that white-marble +monument." + +It was not until a week later that Sheila O'Leary met with one of the big +surprises of her rather eventful existence. A lawyer came down from New +York and asked for her. It seemed that the coal magnate had left her a +considerable number of thousands to spend for him and ease her feelings +about the monument. The codicil was quaintly worded and stated that +inasmuch as "Mother" had gone first, he guessed she would do the next best +by him. + +Sheila took Peter Brooks into her immediate confidence. "Half of it goes +for typhoid research and half for a nurses' home here. We've needed one +dreadfully. What staggers me is when did he do it?" + +Peter grinned. "When I happened to be on duty. We fixed it up, and I was +to keep the secret. He had lots of fun over it--poor old soul!" + +"Merry old soul," corrected Sheila. + +And when the nurses' home was built Sheila flatly ignored all the +suggestions of a memorial tablet with appropriate scriptural verses to +grace the cornerstone or hang in the entrance-hall. + +"Won't have it--never do in the world! Just going to have his picture over +the living-room fireplace." + +And there it hangs--a gigantic reproduction of Old King Cole, done by the +greatest poster artist of America. + + + + +Chapter III + +THE CHANGELING + + +He arrived in the arms of his mother, the mulatto nurse having in some +inexplicable and inconsiderate fashion acquired measles on the ship coming +from their small South American republic. Francisco Enrique Manuel Machado +y Rodriguez--Pancho, for short--and his mother were allowed to disembark +only because of his appalling lack of health and her promise to take +harborage in a hospital instead of a hotel. + +Having heard of the sanitarium from her sister-in-law's brother's wife's +aunt, who had been there herself, and having traveled already over a +thousand miles, the additional hundred or so seemed too trivial to bother +about. So the senora kept her promise to the officials by buying her +ticket thitherward, and Flanders, the bus-driver, arrived just in time to +see three porters unload them and their luggage on the small station +platform. The senora was weeping bitterly, the powder spattered and +smeared all over her pretty, shallow little face; Pancho was clawing and +scratching the air, while he shrieked at the top of his lungs--the only +part of him that gave any evidence of strength. + +Having disposed of the luggage, Flanders hurried back to the assistance of +the senora, whereupon the brown atom clawed him instead of the air and +fortissimoed his shrieking. Flanders promptly returned him to his mother, +backing away to the bus and muttering something about "letting wildcat's +cubs be." + +"Wil'cat?" repeated the senora through her sobs. "I don't know what ees +wil'cat. I theenk eet ees one leetle deevil. Tsa, Panchito! Ciera la +boca." And she shook him. + +During the drive to the sanitarium Flanders cast periodic glances within. +Each time he looked the atom appeared to be shrieking louder, while his +mother was shaking harder and longer. By the time they had reached their +destination the breath had been shaken quite out of him. He lay back +panting in his mother's arms, with only strength enough for a feeble and +occasional snarl. His bonnet of lace and cerise-pink ribbon had come +untied and had slipped from his head, disclosing a mass of black hair +curled by nature and matted by neglect. It gave the last uncanny touch to +the brown atom's appearance and caused Hennessy, who was sweeping the +crossing, to drop his broom and stare agape at the new arrivals. + +"Faith, is it one o' them Brazilian monkeys?" he whispered, pulling +Flanders by the sleeve. "I've heard the women are makin' pets o' them, +although I never heard they were after fixin' them up wi' lace an' ribbons +like that." + +"It's a kid." Flanders stated the fact without any degree of positiveness +as he rubbed three fingers cautiously down his cheek. He was feeling for +scars. "Guess it's a kid all right, but it scratches like a cat, gosh durn +it!" + +Hennessy, however, shook a positive head. "That's no kid. Can't ye see for +yourself it's noways human? Accordin' to the Sunday papers it's all the +style for blond dancers an' society belles to be fetchin' one o' them +little apes about. They're thinkin' if they hang a bit o' live ugliness +furninst, their beauty will look all the more ravishin'." + +"Live ugliness," repeated Flanders; then he laughed. "You've struck it, +Hennessy." + +Meanwhile Francisco Enrique Manuel Machado y Rodriguez--Pancho, for +short--and his mother had passed into the hands of the sanitarium porter. +He had handed them on to the business office, which in turn had handed +them over to the superintendent. The superintendent had shared the +pleasure with the house staff, the staff had retired in favor of the baby +specialist, and at half past seven o'clock that night neither he nor the +superintendent of nurses had been able to coax, argue, command, or +threaten a nurse into taking the case. + +"I'm afraid you will have to do with an undergraduate and make the best of +it." Miss Maxwell acknowledged her helplessness with a faint smile. + +But Doctor Fuller shook his head. "Won't do. It means skilled care and +watching for days. A nurse without experience would be about as much good +as an incubator. Think if you dismissed the four who've refused, you could +frighten a fifth into taking it?" + +This time the superintendent of nurses shook her head. "Not this case. +They all feel about it the same way. Miss Jacobs tells me she didn't take +her training to nurse monkeys." + +The old doctor chuckled. "Don't know as I blame her; thought it was a new +species myself when I first clapped eyes on it. But shucks! I've seen some +of our North American babies look like Lincoln Imps when they were down +with marasmus. Give me a few weeks and a good nurse and his own mother +wouldn't recognize--" He interrupted himself with a pounding fist on the +desk. "Where's Leerie?" + +"You can't have her--not this time." Miss Maxwell's lips became a fraction +more firm, while her eyes sharpened into what her training girls had come +to call her "forceps expression." + +"Why not?" + +"The girl's just off that case for Doctor Fritz; she's tired out. Remember +she's been through three unbroken years of hospitals, and we've worked her +on every hard case we've had since she came back. I'm going to see that +she gets forty-eight hours of rest now." + +"Let her have them next time." Doctor Fuller put all his persuasive charm +into the words. "I need Leerie--some one who can roll up her sleeves and +pitch in. Let me have her just this once." + +But Miss Maxwell was obdurate. "She's asleep now, and she's going to sleep +as long as she needs to. I'll give you Miss Grant--she's had a month at +the Maternity at Rochester." + +"A month!" Scorn curled up the ends of the doctor's mustache. The next +instant they were almost touching in a broad grin. "Leerie likes cases +like this--just eats them up. I'm going after her." And before the +superintendent of nurses could hold him he was down the corridor on his +way to the nurses' dormitory. + +Ten minutes later he was back, grinning harder than ever. He had only time +to thrust his head in the door and wave a triumphant arm. "She's +dressing--as big a fool about babies as I am! Said she'd slept a whole +hour and felt fresh as a daisy. How's that for spunk?" + +"I call it nerve." Miss Maxwell smiled a hopeless smile. "What am I going +to do with you doctors? You wear out all my best nurses and you won't +take--" But Doctor Fuller had fled. + +In spite of his boast of her, the baby specialist saw Sheila O'Leary +visibly cringe when she took her first look at Pancho. He lay sprawling on +his mother's bed in a room littered with hastily opened bags and trunks +out of which had been pulled clothing of all kinds and hues. He had been +relieved of the lace and pink ribbons and was swathed only in shirt and +roundabout, his arms and legs projected like licorice sticks; being of the +same color and very nearly the same thickness. He was dozing, tired out +with the combination of much travel, screaming, shaking, and loss of +breath. So wasted was he that the skin seemed drawn tight over temple and +cheek-bones; the eyes were pitifully sunken, and colorless lips fell back +over toothless gums. + +"How old is--it?" Sheila whispered at last. + +"About nine months." + +Sheila shuddered. "Just the adorable age. Ought to be all pink cheeks, +dimples, and creases--and look at it!" + +"I know, but wait. Give us time and we'll get some of those things +started." Doctor Fuller wagged his head by way of encouragement. + +Sheila answered with a deprecatory shake. "This time I don't believe you. +That would be a miracle, and you can do about everything but miracles. +Honestly, it doesn't seem as if I could touch it; looks about a thousand +years old and just human enough to be horrible." + +The old doctor eyed her askance. "Not going back on me, are you?" + +"Of course I'm not, but there's no use in making believe it will be any +joy-game. I'll be hating it every minute I'm on the case." + +"Hate it as much as you like, only stick to it. Hello there, bub!" This to +the brown atom, who was opening his eyes. + +The eyes were large and brown and as soft and appealing as a baby seal's. +For a moment they looked with strange, wondering intensity at the two +figures bending over it, then with sudden doubling and undoubling of +fists, a frantic upheaval of brown legs, the atom opened volcanically and +poured forth scream after scream. It writhed, it clawed the air, it +looked every whit as horrible as Sheila had claimed. + +"Going to run?" the old doctor asked, anxiously. + +For answer Sheila bent down lower and picked up the writhing mass. With a +firm hand she braced it against her shoulder, patting it gently and +swaying her body rhythmically to the patting. "Some eyes and some temper!" +laughed Sheila. "Where's the mother?" + +The screaming brought the corridor nurse to the door. "Where's the +mother?" Sheila repeated. + +The corridor nurse pointed to the strewn luggage and gave a contemptuous +shrug. "Gone down to dinner looking like a bird of paradise. She said if +the baby cried I was to stir up some of that milk from that can, mix it +with water from that faucet, put it in that bottle, and feed it to him." +Words failed to convey the outraged disgust in her voice. + +The milk indicated was condensed milk in a half-emptied can; the bottle +was the regulation kind for babies and as filthy as dirty glass could +look. Sheila and Doctor Fuller exchanged glances. + +"Plenty of fight in the little beggar or he wouldn't be outlasting--" The +doctor swallowed the remainder of the sentence, cut short by a startled +look on Sheila's face. + +The screams had stopped a minute before, and Sheila believed the atom had +dropped asleep. But instead of feeling the tiny body relax as a sleeping +baby's will, it was growing slowly rigid. With this realization she strode +to the bed and put the atom down. Before their eyes the body stiffened, +while the head rolled slowly from side to side and under the half-closed +lids the eyeballs rolled with it. + +"Convulsions!" announced the corridor nurse, with an anxious look toward +the door. Then, as a bell tinkled, she voiced her relief in a quick +breath. "That's sixty-one. I'm hiking--" + +"No, you don't!" The doctor jerked her back; he wanted to shake her. +"You'll hustle some hot water for us, and then you'll stand by to hustle +some more. See?" He was shedding all unnecessary clothing as he spoke, and +Sheila was peeling the atom free of shirt and roundabout as fast as +skilled fingers could move. + +It is a wonderful thing to watch the fight between human skill and death +for the life of a baby. So little it takes to swing the victory either +way, so close does it border on the miraculous, that few can stand and see +without feeling the silent, invisible presence of the Nazarene. A life +thus saved seems to gather unto itself a special significance and value +for those who have fought for it and those who receive it again. It +creates new feelings and a clearer vision in blind, unthinking motherhood; +it awakens to a vital response hitherto dormant fatherhood. And even the +callous outsider becomes exalted with the wonder and closeness of that +unseen presence. + +As the brown atom writhed from one convulsion into another, Sheila and the +old doctor worked with compressed lips and almost suspended breath; they +worked like a single mind supplied with twice the usual amount of +auxiliaries. They saw, without acknowledging it, the gorgeous, tropical +figure that came and stood half-way between the door and the bed; lips +carmined, throat and cheeks heavy with powder, jewels covering ears, neck, +fingers, and wrists, she looked absurdly unreal beside the nurse in her +uniform and the doctor in his shirt-sleeves. Occasionally Sheila glanced +at her. If they won, would the mother care? The question came back to her +consciousness again and again. In her own experience she knew how often +the thing one called motherhood would come into actual existence after a +struggle like this when birth itself had failed to accomplish anything but +a physical obligation. Believing this, Sheila fought the harder. + +After an hour the convulsions subsided. A few more drops of brandy were +poured down the tiny throat, and slowly the heart took up its regulation +work. Sheila wrapped the atom in a blanket, put it back on the bed, and +beckoned to the mother. + +Curiosity seemed to be the one governing emotion of the senora. She looked +without any trace of grief, and, having looked, she spoke impassively: "I +theenk eet dead. Yes?" + +Doctor Fuller, with perspiration pouring from him, transfixed her with a +stare. "No! That baby's going to get well now, and you're going to let +Miss O'Leary teach you how to take proper care of it. Understand?" Then +clapping his fellow-fighter on the back, he beamed down upon her. +"Leerie, you're one grand soldier!" + +The monotone of the gorgeous senora broke up any response Sheila might +have given. "I theenk eet die, all the same," came the impassive voice. +"The _padre_ on the ship make it all ready for die--I theenk yes pret' +soon." + +"No!" The doctor fairly thundered it forth. + +She stooped and pulled away a fold of the blanket with the tips of her +fingers. "Eet look ver' ugly--like eet die. I theenk--all the same." + +The doctor caught up his cast-off clothing and flung himself out of the +room. Sheila watched him go, a faint smile pulling at the corners of her +mouth. Strange! He had so evidently reached the end of his self-control, +optimism, and patience, while she was just beginning to find hers. In the +sweep of a second things looked wonderfully clear and hopeful. She thought +she could understand what was in the mind and heart of the senora; what +was more significant, she thought she could understand the reason for it. +And what you can understand you can cope with. + +She watched the senora searching in this trunk and that; she saw her jerk +forth a diminutive dress of embroidery and fluted lace; while she thought +the whole thing through to the finish and smiled one of her old +inscrutable smiles. + +"Pret' dress," said the senora. "Plent' lace and reebon. You put on for +bury eet--I go find _padre_." + +"No," said Sheila, emphatically, "you stay here. I'll go and find the +_padre_." + +She left them both in the charge of the corridor nurse and flew for the +telephone. It took her less than a minute to get Father O'Friel; it took +but a trifle more for her to outline her plan and bind him to it. And +Father O'Friel, with a comprehension to match his conscientiousness, and a +sense of humor to match them both, hardly knew whether to be shocked or +amused. + +"Why not appeal to the baby's father?" + +"Realize it takes a month for a letter to reach that little South American +ant-hill? Write now if you want to, but let me be trying my way while the +letter is traveling." + +"All right. But if it doesn't work--" + +"It will. When my feelings about anything run all to the good this way, +I'd bank anything on them. Now please hurry." + +So it came about that instead of a burial service that night Father +O'Friel conducted an original and unprecedented adoption ceremony. Without +even a witness the senora signed a paper which she showed no inclination +to read and which she would hardly have understood had she attempted it. +It was enough for her that she could give away Francisco Enrique Manuel +Machado y Rodriguez to a foolish nurse who was plainly anxious to be +bothered with him. Death had seemed the only release from an obligation +that exhausted and frightened her, and from which neither pleasure nor +personal pride could be obtained. But this was another way mercifully held +out to her, and she accepted it with gratitude and absolute belief. +Eagerly she agreed to the conditions Sheila laid down; the father was to +be notified and forced to make a life settlement on the atom; in the mean +time she was to remain at the sanitarium, pay all expenses, and interfere +in no way with the nurse or the baby. So desirous was she to display her +gratitude that she heaped the atom's wardrobe--lace, ribbons, and +embroidery--upon Sheila, and kissed the hem of Father O'Friel's cassock. + +"_Que gracioso--que magnifico!_" Then she yawned behind her tinted nails. +"I have ver' much the sleep. I find anothaire room and make what you +call--_la cama_." At the door she turned and cast a farewell look upon the +blanketed bundle. "Eet look ver' ugly--all the same I theenk eet die." + +It took barely ten minutes for word of the adoption to reach Doctor +Fuller, and it brought him running. "Good Lord! Leerie, are you crazy? Did +you think I pulled you out of bed to-night to start an orphan-asylum? What +do you mean, girl?" + +Sheila looked down at her newly acquired possession, and for the first +time that night the strange, luminous look that was all her own, that had +won for her her nickname of Leerie, crept into her eyes; they fairly +dazzled the old doctor with their shining. "Honestly, don't know myself. +Still testing out my feelings in my think laboratory." + +"You can't raise that baby and keep on with your nursing. Too much +responsibility, anyway, for a young person. What's more, the mother +shouldn't be allowed to dodge it. She can be made fit." + +"How are you going to do it? Train her with harness and braces? Or moral +suasion--or the courts?" + +"And I thought you hated it, couldn't bear to touch it," growled the baby +specialist. + +"Did. But that's past tense. Since I fought for it, it's suddenly become +remarkably precious. And that's the precise feeling I'm testing up in the +lab." + +"In the name of common sense what do you mean, Leerie?" + +She patted his arm soothingly. "There, there. Go to bed; you're tuckered +out. Leave me alone for two months, and I'll tell you. And suppose you +write down that milk formula before you go; he's going to wake up as +fighting hungry as a little tiger-cat." + +How the sanitarium took the news of the arrivals and the rumor of the +adoption, what they thought of the gorgeous and irresponsible senora and +Leerie's latest exploit, does not concern the story. It is enough to say +that tongues wagged abundantly; and when Sheila appeared some ten days +later in the pine grove wheeling a perambulator every one who was out and +could manufacture the flimsiest excuse for her curiosity hurried to the +carriage and thrust an inquisitive head under the hood. It seemed as if +hundreds blocked the walk from the pond to the rest-house. + +"Bad as a circus parade," thought Sheila. "Can't stay here, or they'll put +us in a tent and ask admission." Then she spied Hennessy coming with his +platter of bread for the swans, and called to him. Somehow he managed to +scatter the crowd, and Sheila clung to the sleeve of his blue jumper as if +it had been so much cork to a man overboard. "Listen, Hennessy, I want to +take Pancho away from the San. You and Marm have a cozy place, and it's +far enough away. There's only the two of you. Can't you take us in?" + +But Hennessy was likewise thrusting a head under the hood. "Honest to God, +Miss Leerie, is it human?" + +"Hennessy, don't be an idiot!" + +"But I saw the face on it--an' the scratchin' it did the day it was +fetched in. Does it still be scratchin'?" + +"Sometimes." Sheila smiled faintly. "He hasn't had time yet to forget all +those shakings. Well, can we come?" + +Hennessy eyed the perambulator fearsomely. "Have to ask Marm. Faith, do ye +think, now, if it had been human, its mother would have given it away same +as if it had been a young cat or dog too many in the litter?" + +"Mothers don't have to love their babies; there's no birth license to +sign, you know, with a love-and-cherish clause in it. Just come, wanted or +not, and afterward--" + +But Hennessy was deep in speculations of his own. "Now if it was Ireland, +Miss Leerie, do ye know what I would be thinkin'?" + +"What?" + +He lowered his voice and looked furtively over his shoulder. "A +changeling! Sure as you're born, Miss Leerie, I'm thinkin' it's one o' +them little black imps the fairies leave in place o' the real child +they're after stealin'. I disremember if they have the likes o' that in +South America, but that's my notion, just the same." + +Sheila O'Leary laughed inside and out. "Hennessy, you're wonderful. And +who but an Irishman would have thought of it! A changeling--a most +changeable changeling! What's the treatment?" + +"A good brewin' of egg-shells--goose egg-shells if ye have 'em, hens' if +ye haven't. But don't ye be laughin'; 'tis a sign o' black doin's, an' +laughin' might bring bad luck on ye." + +Sheila sobered. "We'll brew egg-shells. Now hurry home to Marm and coax +her hard, Hennessy." + +Because Sheila O'Leary invariably had her way among the many who loved and +believed in her, and because Hennessy and Marm Hennessy were numbered +conspicuously among these, Sheila and her adopted moved early the +following morning into the diminutive and immaculate house of Hennessy, +with a vine-covered porch in front and a hen-yard in the rear. And that +night there was a plentiful brew of egg-shells on the kitchen stove, done +in the most approved Irish fashion, with the atom near by to inhale the +fumes. + +"Maybe 'twill work, an' then again maybe 'twon't." Hennessy looked +anxious. "Magic, like anything else, often spoils in transportatin'." + +"Oh, it will work!" Sheila spoke with conviction. "And we'll hope the +senora's letter won't travel too fast." + +So the names of Sheila O'Leary and Francisco Enrique Manuel Machado y +Rodriguez were crossed off the books of the sanitarium, and the gossips +saw them no more. Only Doctor Fuller and Peter Brooks sought them out in +their new quarters, the doctor to attend professionally, Peter to attend +to the dictates of a persistent heart. Never a day went by that he did not +find his feet trailing the dust on the road to the house of Hennessy, and +Sheila dropped into the habit of watching for him from the vine-covered +porch at a certain time every afternoon. The picture of the best nurse at +the sanitarium sitting in a little old rocker with the brown atom kicking +and crowing on her lap, and looking down the steps with eyes that seemed +to grow daily more luminous, came to be an accepted reality to both Peter +and the doctor--as much of a reality as the reaching out of the atom's +small tendril-like fingers to curl about one's thumb or to cling to one's +watch-charm. + +"Loving little cuss," muttered Peter one afternoon. "Can you tell me how +any mother under the sun could resist those eyes or the clutch of those +brown paws?" + +"Don't forget one point," Sheila spoke quietly; "he wasn't a loving little +cuss then." + +"He'll go down on the books as my pet case," chuckled the doctor. "Four +pounds in four weeks! Think of it, on a whole-milk formula!" + +Hennessy wagged his head knowingly at Sheila, and when they had gone he +snorted forth his contempt for professional ignorance. "Milk! +Fiddlesticks! Sure a docthor don't know everything. 'Twas the egg-shells +that done it, an' Marm an' me can bear witness he quit the scratchin' an' +began the smilin' from that very hour. Look at him now! Can ye deny it, +Miss Leerie?" + +"I'm not wanting to, Hennessy." Whereupon Sheila proved the matter by +reducing the atom to squeals of joy while she retold the old history of +the pigs with the aid of five little brown toes. + +Between Peter and Hennessy, Sheila came into possession of many facts +concerning the senora. Her dresses and her jewels were the talk of the +sanitarium. She applied herself diligently to all beautifying treatments +and the charming of susceptible young men. Presumably life to her meant +only a continuous process of adorning herself and receiving admiration. So +she spent her days dressing and basking in the company of a dozen +different swains, and the atom cast no annoying shadow on her pathway. + +August came, and the atom discovered his legs. Sheila disregarded the lace +and ribbons with a sigh of relief and took to making rompers. They were +adorable rompers with smocking and the palest of pink collars and belts. +The licorice sticks had changed to a rich olive brown and had assumed +sufficient rotundity to allow of pink-and-white socks and white +ankle-ties. In all the busy years of her nursing Sheila had never had time +for anything like this; she had never had a baby for longer than a week or +two at a time. Just as she was beginning to feel her individual share in +them they had all gone the way of properly parented offspring, and never +had she sewed a single baby dress. She gloried in the lengths of dimity +and poplin, in the intricacies of new stitches and embroidery. And Peter, +watching from a step on the porch, gloried in the picture she made. + +When a romper was finished it had to be tried on that very minute. She +would whisk up the atom from the hammock where he lay kicking, and slip +him into it, holding him high for Peter to admire. + +"He's a cherub done in bronze," said Peter, one day. "Here, give him to +me." And later, as he perched him on his shoulder and tickled his ribs +until he squirmed with glee he announced, "If I wasn't a homeless bachelor +I'd take him off your hands in about two minutes." + +"What's that?" shouted Doctor Fuller, coming down the street. "Did you say +anything about re-adoption? Well, you might as well know now that Mrs. +Fuller and I intend taking Pancho off Leerie's hands as soon as she's +ready to go back to work again. Aren't you getting lazy, Leerie?" + +For once Sheila failed to respond in kind to the doctor's chaffing. All +the shine faded out of her eyes. "Can't believe two months have gone--a +month for a letter to go, a month for an answer to come. I'm afraid none +of us will keep him very much longer." + +"Don't worry, they won't want him back. Besides, they've forfeited +their right to him," the old doctor snorted, indignantly. + + +[Illustration: Holding him high for Peter to admire] + + +"Not legally. When the letter comes, you'll see." There was none of the +anticipated delight in Sheila's voice that had been there on that first +night when she had laid her plans and sworn Father O'Friel into backing +her up. Her voice was as colorless as her eyes were dull; for some +miraculous reason the life and inner light that seemed such an inseparable +part of her had suddenly gone out. She reached up and removed the atom +from Peter's shoulder. + +Hennessy, who had joined the group, was the last to speak. "Sure it's +mortial good of both ye gentlemen to lift the throuble o' raisin' the wee +one off Miss Leerie, but if any one lifts it, it's Marm an' me. We had +that settled the next morning after we fetched him over an' knew 'twas the +real one we'd got, after all." + +"The real one? What do you mean by that?" The doctor looked puzzled. + +Hennessy winked his only answer. + +Through the first days of September Sheila waited with feverish anxiety. +The hours spent on the vine-covered porch with the atom, asleep or awake, +for steady company, and Peter for occasional, passed all too quickly. For +the first time in her life Sheila wished days back; she would have put a +checking hand on time had she had the power. Then just as she was making +up her mind that her fear was for nothing, that her plans had gloriously +failed and Pancho was to be hers for all time, the wretched news came. +Peter brought it, hurrying hatless down the street, and Sheila, knowing in +her heart what had happened, went down the steps to meet him. + +"Is it a letter--or a wire--or what? And where's the senora?" + +"Having hysterics in front of the business office." Peter stopped to get +his breath. "The husband wired from New York--he'll be down on the morning +train. It seems the senora wired him when she first got here that Pancho +was dying, so she didn't see any need of changing it in her letter. She +said she wanted the money for a monument and masses--and he could send it +in a draft. Guess he thought more of the boy than the mother did, for he's +come up to bring the body home and put up the monument down there. Now +she doesn't know what to tell him. Can you beat that for straight +fiction?" + +Sheila picked up the atom and disappeared inside without a word. When she +reappeared a few minutes later, the atom was arrayed in his most becoming +romper, his black curls were brushed into an encircling halo, his hands +clapping over some consciousness of pleasurable excitement. Sheila tucked +him into his carriage and faced Peter with a grim look of command. "You're +to play policeman, understand! Walk back of me all the way. If I show any +sign of turning back or running away, arrest me on the spot." + +"What are you going to do?" + +"What two months ago I thought would be the easiest thing in the +world--and what I wouldn't be doing now for a million dollars if I hadn't +given my word to Father O'Friel and the law wasn't against me." + +As Peter had rightfully reported, the senora was having hysterics in front +of the business office, with the business and hospital staff trying their +best to quench her, and as many patients as the lobby would hold watching +in varying degrees of curiosity. Only one of Latin blood could have +achieved a scene of such melodramatic abandon and stamped it as genuine, +but no one present doubted the grief and despair of the senora as she +paced the floor wringing her hands and wailing in her native tongue. +Sheila entered by way of the basement and the lift, and she wheeled the +atom's carriage into the inner circle of the crowd, with Peter still in +attendance. + +For the moment the interest swerved from the weeping figure to the cooing +occupant of the carriage. The atom was still clapping his hands, and a +pink flush of excitement tinged the olive of the cheeks. "Look at that +cunning baby!"... "Isn't he a darling?"... "Why, isn't that the South +American baby?"... "Sh-h-h--deformed or something."... "Of course, it +can't be." Sentences, whole and in fragments, came to Sheila as she pushed +her way through the crowd. + +Something of this new interest must have penetrated the senora's +consciousness, for her wailing ceased; she cocked her head on one side +like a listening parrakeet. "Who say babee? I theenk--I theenk--" Then she +saw Sheila. A look of immediate recognition swept over her face, but it +was gone the instant she looked at the atom. "Who that babee?" she +demanded. + +"Mine." Sheila pinned her with steady eyes, while her mouth looked as if +it could never grow gentle and demure again. + +Incredulity, suspicion, amazement, were all registered on the pretty, +shallow face. "Your babee? How you get babee?" + +Sheila made no answer. + +The senora looked again at the atom; she held out a timorous finger to +him. He responded cordially by curling a small fist promptly about it. +"_Madre de Dios, que bonito! Que chico y hermoso!_" Then, to Sheila: "I +give you seeck babee--eet no die? You make thees babee out of seeck babee, +yes?" + +Sheila still remained silent. + +The senora turned to the atom for the confirmation she desired. "_Nene, +como te llamas?_" + +It was intensely entertaining to the atom. He wagged the senora's finger +frantically, tossed back his head, and gave forth a low, gurgling laugh. +"_Jesu!_ That ees hees papa. He look like that when he laugh. _Tu nombre, +nene--tu nombre?_" With a fresh outburst she sank down beside the +carriage and buried her face in the brown legs and pink socks. + +But the atom did not approve of this. His lower lip dropped and quivered; +he reached out his arm to Sheila. "Ma-ma-ma-ma," he coaxed. + +"You no ma-ma, I ma-ma." The senora was on her feet, shaking an angry fist +at Sheila. But in an instant her anger was gone; she was down on her knees +again, clasping Sheila's skirt, while her voice wailed forth in +supplication. "You no keep leetle babee? You ver' good, ver' kind, +senorita--you _muy simpatica_, yes? You give leetle babee. I ma-ma. Yes?" + +But Sheila O'Leary stood grim and unyielding. "No. He is mine. When he was +sick, dying, you didn't want him. You did not like to look at him because +he was ugly; you did not like to hear him cry--so you abused him. Now, +he's all well; he's a pretty baby; he does not cry; he does not scratch. I +never shake him; he loves me very, very much. Now I keep him!" Thus Sheila +delivered her ultimatum. + +But the senora still clung. "I no shake babee now. I love babee now. +Please--please--his pa-pa come. You give heem back?" + +Sheila unclasped the senora's hands, turned the atom's carriage about, and +deliberately wheeled him away. + +Out of the lobby to the sidewalk she was pursued by pleading cries, +expostulating reproofs, as well as actual particles of the crowd itself, +the Reverend Mr. Grumble, the wife of one of the trustees, a handful of +protesting patients, following to urge the rights of the prostrated +mother. But Sheila refused to be held back or argued with; stoically she +kept on her way. When she reached the little vine-covered porch only +Peter, Father O'Friel, and Doctor Fuller remained as escort. + +"You can't keep him, Leerie. You've got to give him up." The old doctor +spoke sorrowfully but firmly. + +"It was only a mock adoption, and you promised if she ever wanted him back +she should have him," Father O'Friel reminded her. + +"She's his mother, after all," Peter put in, lamely. + +At that Sheila exploded. "You men make me tired! 'She's his mother, after +all.' After all what? Cruelty, neglect, heartlessness, hoping he would +die--glad to be rid of him! That's about all the sense of justice you +have. Let a woman weep and call for her baby, and every man within earshot +would hand him over without considering for a moment what kind of care she +would give him. Oh, you--make--me--sick!" Sheila buried her face in the +nape of Pancho's neck. + +Doctor Fuller, who had always known her, who had stood by her in her +disgrace when she had been sent away from the sanitarium three years +before and had believed in her implicitly in spite of all damning +evidence, who had fought for her a dozen times when she had called down +upon her head the wrath of the business office, looked now upon her +silent, shaking figure with open-mouthed astonishment. In all those years +he had never seen Leerie cry, and he couldn't quite stand it. + +"There, there, child! We understand--we're not quite the duffers you make +us out. Of course, by all rights, human and moral, the little shaver +belongs to you, but you can't keep him, just the same." + +"Know it! Needn't rub it in! Wasn't going to!" Sheila raised a wet face, +with red-rimmed eyes and lips that trembled outrageously. She couldn't +steady them to save her, and so she let them tremble while she stuttered +forth her last protest. "Didn't think for a moment I wouldn't give him +back, d-d-did you? That was my plan--my way. I wanted Father O'Friel to +let me try--t-t-t-thought all along he'd grow into such an ad-d-d-dorable +mite his m-m-m-mother'd be wanting him back. What I didn't count on was my +wanting to k-k-keep him." Sheila swallowed hard. She wanted to get rid of +that everlasting choke in her throat. When she spoke again her voice was +steadier. "But I tell you one thing. She doesn't get him without fighting +for him. She's going to fight for him as I fought that night in the +sanitarium, and you're going to help me keep her fighting. Understand? +Then perhaps when she gets him she'll have some faint notion of how +precious a baby can be." With a more grim expression than any of the three +had ever seen on her usually luminous face, Sheila O'Leary shouldered the +atom and disappeared within the house. + +The three men stood by her while Hennessy guarded the house. For the rest +of the day the senora, backed by the business office and a procession of +interested sympathizers, stormed the parish house and demanded to see the +paper that she had signed. They stormed Doctor Fuller's office and +demanded his co-operation, or at least what information he had to give. +They consulted the one lawyer in the town and three others within car +distance, but their advice availed little, inasmuch as Father O'Friel had +refused to give up the paper until the baby's father arrived, and they +could get no intelligent idea from the senora of how legal the adoption +had been made. By keeping perfectly dumb the three were able to hold the +crowd in abeyance, and the senora, looking anything but a bird of +paradise, came back to them again and again to weep, to plead, to bribe. + +The excitement held until midnight, an unprecedented occurrence for the +sanitarium. It was still dark the next morning when Hennessy was roused +from the haircloth sofa in the hall, where he was still keeping guard, by +the fumbling of a hand on the door-knob. "Who's there?" roared Hennessy. + +"Please--eet ees me--the Senora Machado y Rodriguez." + +"Go 'way! Shoo-oo!" Hennessy banged the door with his fist as he always +banged the bread-platter to scatter the swans. + +"I go when I see babee," came the feeble response to his racket. + +"Let her in, Hennessy," came the voice of Sheila from up-stairs. + +Hennessy unbarred the door, and a shaken, pathetic little figure crept in. +All the coy prettiness was gone for the moment; the swollen eyes had +circles about them, the cheeks were sallow and free of powder as the lips +were free of carmine. The mouth quivered like a grief-stricken child's. +"Please--please--I see babee?" came the wail again. + +"Yes. Come up softly," Sheila called from the head of the stairs. + +The little figure crept up eagerly. Sheila put out an arm and led her into +a room where a single candle burned beside the bed. There lay the atom, +rosy and dimpling in his sleep. + +It is to be doubted if the senora had ever dreamed of such a possession +after the appalling reality of the original Francisco Enrique Manuel +Machado y Rodriguez. In her ignorance and youth she had accepted ugliness, +sickness, and peevish crying as the normal attributes of babyhood, and +because of this she had loathed it. Therefore to be suddenly confronted +with her awful mistake, to find that she had thrown away something that +was beautiful and enchanting, to know she had forfeited what might have +been hers, to feel in a small degree the first longing of motherhood and +be denied it--all this was born into the slowly awakening consciousness of +the senora. It almost transformed her face into homely holiness as she +made her one supreme prayer and sacrifice. "You give me my babee--now--you +give heem and not keep--and I give you all these. See?" She held out her +hands that had been clasped under the heavy mantilla that covered her head +and shoulders. Opening them, she thrust them close, that Sheila might +look. They were filled with jewels--the jewels she adored, that had +contributed a large part to the joy of her existence. Pins, rings, +necklaces, bracelets--the senora had not kept back a single ornament. +"You--you and the blessed Maria will give heem back to me?" + +"Get down and pray to the Maria," commanded Sheila. "Promise her that if +she will give your baby back to you you will take care of him for ever and +ever. Never neglect him, never shake nor slap him, never give him bad milk +to make him sick. Promise you'll always love him and keep him laughing and +pretty. And remember--break your promise, let anything happen to Pancho +again, and Maria will not give him back to you another time." + +The sanitarium never learned in detail how Senor Machado became reconciled +to a live son, not being present when the news was conveyed to him. They +saw him arrive, however, looking very much shaken with his bereavement, +and they saw him depart with his son perched high upon his shoulder, +wearing the expression of one who has come unexpectedly into a great +possession, while the senora clung to them both. The sanitarium waved them +off with gladness and satisfaction--all but four unsmiling outsiders. So +great a hole can a departing atom sometimes leave behind that those four +who had given him temporary care and guardianship went about for days with +sorrow written plainly upon them. Hennessy fed the swans in bitter +silence; Peter moped, with a laugh for no one; Doctor Fuller groaned +whenever South America was mentioned; while all three knew they could not +even fathom the deepness or the bigness of that hole for Sheila. + +Peter took her for a twilight ride in his car the first empty night. "Go +on and cry it out--I sha'n't mind," he urged as he speeded the car along a +country road. + +Sheila smiled faintly. "Thank you--can't. Just feel bruised and banged all +over--feel as if I needed a plunge in that old pool of Bethesda." + +They spun on in silence for a few miles more before Sheila spoke again. "I +learned one wonderful thing from Pancho--something I never felt sure of +before." + +"What was that?" + +"Sorry--can't tell. It's the sort of thing you tell only the man you +marry, after you've discovered he's the only man you ever could have +married." + +Peter speeded the car ahead and smiled quietly into the gathering +darkness. Fortunately he was not an impatient man. + +There is one point concerning the atom that Hennessy and Doctor Fuller +still wrangle over, neither of them having the slightest conception of the +other's point of view. + +"That was a case of good nursing and milk," the old doctor persists. + +While Hennessy beats the air with his fists and shouts: "Nothing of the +sort! 'Twas egg-shells that done it." + + + + +Chapter IV + +FOR THE HONOR OF THE SAN + + +Peter Brooks paced the sanitarium grounds like a man possessed. Hands +thrust deep into pockets, teeth hard clenched, head bare, the raw October +wind ruffling his heavy crop of hair like a cock's comb. So suggestive was +the resemblance that Hennessy, watching him from the willow stump by the +pond, was forced to remark to Brian Boru, the gray swan, that Mr. Peter +looked like a young rooster, after growing his spurs, looking for his +first fight. + +"Aye, an' for one I'm wishin' he'd be findin' it," continued Hennessy. +"He's bided peaceful an' patient till there is no virtue left in him. Ye +can make believe women be civilized if ye like, but I'm knowin' that a +woman's sure to go to the man that fights the hardest to get her, same as +it was in the savage day o' the world. An' there's nothing that sets a +man right quicker with himself than a good fight, tongues or fists." + +At that moment Peter would have gladly chosen either or both if fate could +only have furnished him with a legitimate combatant. But a man cannot +fight gossipy old ladies or jealous, petty-minded nurses, or a doctor whom +he has never met and whose transgressions he cannot swear to. And yet +Peter wanted to double up his fists and pitch into the whole community; he +felt himself all brute and yearned for wholesale slaughter. + +Peter had come to the sanitarium in the beginning to be cured of a +temporal malady, only to rise from his bed stricken with an eternal one. +He had fallen desperately in love with Sheila O'Leary as only a man of +Peter's sort can fall in love, once and for all time. Moreover, he +believed in her as a man believes in the best and purest that is likely to +come into his life. On the day of his convalescing, when she had been +transferred from his case to another, he had sworn that he would not stir +foot from the old San until he had won her. He had kept his word for four +months. He would have been content to keep it for four more--or for four +years, for that matter--had everything not turned suddenly topsy-turvy +and sent his world of hopes crashing down about him. + +For four months he had shared as much of Sheila's life and work as she +would allow. He had let himself drift into the role of a comfortable and +sympathetic companion whenever her hours for recreation gave him a chance. +His love had grown as his admiration and understanding of her had grown, +until she had come to seem as necessary a part of his life as the air he +breathed. Then he had been able to smile whimsically at those gossipy +tales. What if she had been suspended and sent away from the sanitarium? +What if she had broken through some of the tight-laced rules with which +all institutions of this kind hedge in their nurses? Sheila's proclivity +for breaking rules was a byword among the many who loved her, and the head +of the institution, the superintendent of nurses, the entire staff of +doctors, down to Hennessy, the keeper of the walks and swans, only smiled +and closed their eyes to all of Sheila's backsliding. For hadn't they all +believed in her? And hadn't they sent for her to come back to them again? +And which one of them had ever allowed a word of scandal to pass his +lips? So Peter smiled, too. + +In those months he had come to read Sheila--so he thought--like an open +book. He had learned by heart all her moods, the good and the bad, the +sweet and the bitter. He knew she could be as divinely tender and +compassionate as a celestial mother; he also knew that she could be as +barren of sympathy and as relentless as fate itself. She could pour forth +her whole throbbing soul, impulsive, warm, and radiant, as a true Celt, +yet she could be as impersonal, terse, and cryptic as a marconigram. He +loved these very extremes in her, her unmitigated hatred for the things +she hated, and her unfailing love for the things she loved. She made no +pretense or boast for herself; she was what she was for all the world to +see. And Peter had found her the stanchest, sweetest, most vital--albeit +the most stubborn--piece of womanhood he had ever known. Her very nickname +of "Leerie" was her open letter of introduction to every one; her smile +and the wonder-light in her eyes were her best credentials. Small wonder +it was that her patients watched for her to come and that Peter felt he +could snap his fingers at the scandalmongers. + +But Peter wasn't snapping them now--or smiling. His fists were doubled +tight in his pockets, and he clenched his teeth harder as he paced the +walk from pond to rest-house. How the accursed tongues of the gossips rang +in his head! "Rather odd the sanitarium should have sent for him, wasn't +it? Don't you know he was the young surgeon who was mixed up in that +affair with that popular nurse?"... "Oh yes, they hushed it up and sent +them both away."... "Nothing definite was ever explained, but they were +always together, just as they are now, and you can't get smoke without +some burning."... "Yes, Doctor Brainard and Miss O'Leary. Didn't you ever +hear about what happened three years ago?" + +Peter's stride seemed to measure forth the length of each offending +tongue, and when he reached the end of his beaten track he swung about as +if to meet and silence them all, for all time. But instead he came face to +face with the two who had caused them to wag. So absorbed were the surgeon +and nurse in what they had to say to each other that they brushed by +Peter without seeing him. He might have been one of the rustic posts of +the rest-house or the pine-tree growing close by. As they passed, Peter +scanned narrowly the half-averted face of the girl he loved and found it +pitifully changed in those few days. The luminous light had gone from her +eyes; her lips no longer curved to the gracious, demure smile Peter had +always called "cloistered." They were set to grim determination, as if the +girl had gripped fast to a purpose and no amount of shaking or persuasion +would induce her to let go. Her eyes were circled and anxious. Peter +groaned unconsciously at his glimpse of her, while Hennessy from his +vantage-point on the stump shook a vengeful fist at the retreating back of +the surgeon. + +"A million curses on him!" muttered Hennessy, his lips tight shirred. +"Sure, the lass has the look of a soul possessed." The next instant his +fist was descending not over-mercifully on Peter's back. "First I'm +cursin' him an' then I'm cursin' ye. For the love o' Saint Patrick, are ye +goin' to stand round like a blitherin' fool an' see that rascal of a +docthor do harm again to our lass? I'll come mortial close to wringin' +your neck if ye do." + +Peter glared at his erstwhile friend and fellow-philosopher. "You're the +fool, Hennessy. What under heaven can I do? What could any man do in my +place?" + +"Fight for her. Can't you see the man has her possessed? What an' how +Hennessy hasn't the wits to make out, but ye have. Search out her throuble +same as she searched out yours, an' make her whole an' sweet an' shinin' +again." Hennessy laid two gnarled, brown hands on Peter's shoulder while +he peered up at him with eyes full of appeal. "Ye've heard naught to shake +your faith in the lass? Ye believe in her--aye?" + +"Good God! man, of course I believe in her! I'd believe in her if all the +tongues in the world wagged till doomsday. But what else can I do? Hang +around this old hotbed of gossip and listen and listen, powerless to cram +the truth down their throats because I don't know it?" Peter shot out a +sudden hand and gripped Hennessy's. "For the love of your blessed Saint +Patrick, stand up like a man there, Hennessy, and tell me what was the +truth?" + +For a moment Hennessy's eyes shifted; he whistled his breath in and out in +staccato jerks; then his gaze came back to Peter and he eyed him steadily. +"Son, I'm knowin' no more than when I first saw ye." + +"You believe in her?" + +Hennessy pulled his hand free and shook his fist in Peter's face. "Bad +scran to ye for thinkin' aught else. 'Tis God's truth I'm tellin' ye, Mr. +Peter. I'm knowin' no more than them blitherin' tongues say, but I'd pray +our lass into heaven wi' my dyin' breath if I could." + +Peter smiled. "You'd be doing better to pray her out of this miserable +little purgatory right here. If she belonged to me, Hennessy--" + +"I wish to God she did, sir! But that's what ye can fight for--make her +belong." + +"Easier said than done. Since Doctor Brainard came I can't get her to see +me. Read that!" Peter pulled out of his pocket a tiny folded note and +handed it to the swan-keeper. It was deciphered with much labor and read +with troubled seriousness. + + Dear Mr. Brooks: + + Thank you for the flowers, and the candy, and the many offers of the + car, but I haven't time to enjoy any of these things just now. So + please don't send me any more, or write, or try to see me. I think it + would be better for every one, and far happier in the end for you, if + you would go back to your work as soon as possible. + + Faithfully yours, + + SHEILA O'LEARY. + +Hennessy snorted. "So that's what she thinks, is it? Well, don't ye do it. +'Twas betther advice I gave ye myself; hold fast here an' fight for her. +Mind that!" And with a farewell pull of his forelock Hennessy left him. + +Peter watched him for an instant, then with a new purpose full-born in his +mind he turned and walked swiftly back to the sanitarium. He knew why the +management had sent for Brainard to come back to the San. The head surgeon +had been taken with typhoid; the wards were full of his special operative +cases, and Brainard, who had trained under him, was the most skilful man +available to take his place. But why had they put Sheila O'Leary on as his +surgical nurse? Why had they done this thing that was bound to revive the +old scandal and set tongues wagging anew? Peter knew that upon the answer +to this depended his decision. Would he take Sheila's advice and go, or +Hennessy's advice and fight? + +He went directly to the office of the superintendent of nurses, and, +finding the door well ajar, he entered without knocking. Miss Maxwell was +seated at her desk. Across the desk, with clasped hands, cheeks aflame, +and lips compressed into a look of even greater determination than Peter +had seen there a few minutes before, leaned Sheila O'Leary. + +Peter colored at his unintentional intrusion. "Excuse me," he stammered. +"Not hearing voices, I thought you were alone. I'll come again later, Miss +Maxwell," and he turned toward the door. + +Leerie's voice called him back. "Don't go--want you. Something I was +trying to get Miss Max to promise." + +This time Miss Maxwell colored. "It's against rules, Leerie, to talk over +hospital matters before patients, even as discreet a one as Mr. Brooks." + +"I know--can't help it--need him. Besides, he's his best friend." She +turned to Peter with a strained eagerness. "This will be news to you. +Doctor Dempsy is due here in the morning--taken suddenly--major +operation--nurse just wired. I want you and Miss Max to take him on to the +Dentons if he can stand the trip. Awfully delicate operation, and it's +Doctor John's crack piece of work. Will you do it?" + +The unexpectedness of the news and the request overwhelmed Peter's usually +agile intelligence. He stared blankly at the girl before him. "I don't +think I understand. If Dempsy is coming here for an operation, why should +we take him somewhere else? Why shouldn't he be operated on here if he +wants to be?" + +"He thinks Doctor Jefferson is still operating. He doesn't know--" + +The superintendent of nurses interrupted her. "Leerie, you're overstepping +even your privileges. Doctor Brainard was called here to take charge +because the management had absolute confidence in his skill and knew he +was trustworthy and conscientious. I think there is nothing further that +needs to be said. Doctor Dempsy will do what every other patient has +done, put himself unreservedly into Doctor Brainard's hands." + +"But he mustn't." The crimson had died out of Sheila's cheeks, and she +stood now pale to the very lips, her face working convulsively. "You don't +seem to understand, and it's hard--hard to put it into words. Doctor +Brainard is young--very young for his position and all the responsibility +that has been heaped upon him. His work ever since he came has been +terrific--eight and ten majors a day, Sundays, too. It's been a fearful +strain, and now to make him responsible for a case like Doctor Dempsy, a +case that takes great delicacy and nerve, one that is bound to attack his +sympathy and his reputation at the same time, why--why, it isn't fair. +Can't you see that if he should fail, no matter how blameless he might be, +it would stick to him for the rest of his life, a blot on his work and the +San?" Sheila's hands went out in a last appeal. "Send him to the Dentons; +they've had five years of experience for every year of Doctor Brainard's. +Please, please! Oh, don't you see?" + +"Why should you care so much?" The words were off Peter's tongue before he +knew it. He would have given a good deal if he could have got them back. + +The girl looked from him to Miss Maxwell. The question apparently +bewildered her. Then a hint of her old-time dignity and assurance +returned, coupled with her cryptic mood. "Plenty of reasons: he was Miss +Max's chief--she always worshiped him--your best friend, a most loved and +honored man in the profession. Isn't he? Well, this isn't the time or the +place for a risk." + +The superintendent rose and looked down at the girl. When she spoke there +was a touch of annoyance in the tone as well as sadness. "And that's as +much--and as little--as you expect to tell us?" + +Sheila nodded. + +Miss Maxwell threw up her hands in a little gesture of helplessness. +"Leerie, Leerie, what are we going to do with you? It was this way even +three years ago." + +In a flash the girl's arms were about the superintendent's neck, her face +buried on her shoulder; the words were barely audible to Peter, "Love me +and believe in me--as you did three years ago." And then a choking, +wet-eyed, and rather disheveled figure flew past him, out of the room. + +Miss Maxwell sank back heavily into her chair; her face showed plainly her +battling between love for the girl, her sense of outraged discipline, and +her anxiety over the decision she must make. Peter watched her with a sort +of impersonal sympathy; the major part of his being had been plunged into +what seemed a veritable chasm of hopelessness. He tried to pull himself +together and realize that there was Dempsy to think about. + +"What are you going to do?" he asked, at last. + +"Do? You mean--about--?" + +Peter nodded. + +An almost pathetic smile crept into the superintendent's face. "As long as +you were here, anyway, it's rather a relief to be able to confess that I +don't know what to do. You see, superintendents are always supposed to +have infallible judgment on all matters," she sighed. "I have never but +once known Leerie to break a rule or ask for a special dispensation +without a reason--a good reason. But I don't understand what lies behind +all this." + +"I do." Peter fairly roared it forth. "She loves that man, and she's +afraid this might ruin his career if--if anything happened. Why, it's as +plain as these four walls and the ceiling above us. No woman pleads for a +man that way unless she loves him better than anything else on God's +earth." + +"I think you're wrong." + +"Why?" Peter strode over to the superintendent's desk like a man after his +reprieve. "I'm not just curious. I've the biggest excuse in the world for +wanting to know why she has asked this. I love Sheila O'Leary. I love her +well enough to leave her to-night with the man she loves, provided he +loves her. But if he doesn't--if he's just playing with her, accepting her +as a sop to his vanity, as a lot of near-famous men will with a +woman--then, by thunder! I'm going to stay and fight him for her! +Understand?" And Peter's fist pounded the desk. + +The superintendent smiled again. This time there was no pathos in it. "I +understand--and I'd stay. You ought to know Leerie well enough by this +time to know that she can fight for the right of anything, whether she +cares personally or not, and more than that, even if she has to suffer +for it herself. She's the only woman I have ever known who had that +particular kind of heroism. If she felt Doctor Brainard needed some one to +stand up for him, I believe she could plead better if she didn't care. And +I've another, a better reason for thinking she doesn't love him. She +refused at first to be his surgical nurse. She didn't consent until she +knew that he had made that one of the conditions of his coming here; he +stipulated that he must be allowed to bring his own anesthetist, operate +without an assistant, and choose his own operating nurse." + +"And he choose her?" + +"She is the best we have. Not using an assistant throws a tremendous +responsibility and strain on the nurse, and Doctor Brainard naturally +wanted the most expert one he could get." + +"Then there was nothing personal--" + +"I don't think so. Doctor Brainard has a strong influence over Leerie, but +I believe it is only what any surgeon with distinction and power would +have. If she really cared for Doctor Brainard, she wouldn't have said +what she did when I asked her to take the appointment." + +"What did she say?" Peter leaned forward eagerly and gripped the edge of +the desk. + +"She said she would rather be suspended for three more years than do it, +but if there was no one else, she guessed she could manage it for the +honor of the San." + +"What did she mean?" + +"Oh, that's just a by-phrase among those of us who have worked here a long +while and feel a certain loyalty and responsibility for the ideals of this +institution. We have tried to stand for honest, humane work as against +mere moneygrubbing and popularity." + +"I see. That's why Dempsy sent me here; that's why he's coming himself. +Thank you, Miss Maxwell. I hope you're right." Peter straightened himself +and moved toward the door. + +"Wait a minute, Mr. Brooks. How much do you know of what happened three +years ago?" + +"Just what has dripped from the wagging tongues." Peter smiled ironically. + +"Suppose I tell you the truth of it. It might help you to fight this +thing through. It certainly couldn't hurt your love for Leerie if you +really love her." + +"Nothing could," said Peter, simply. + +"Doctor Brainard and Leerie were the very best of friends during the years +she was training and he was working under Doctor Jefferson. Then I thought +it was love; they were always together, and there seemed to be a strong, +deep sympathy between the two. Just about the time she graduated things +began to go awry. Doctor Brainard was on the verge of a nervous breakdown +and Leerie seemed to be laboring under some bad mental strain. Then the +nurses began to hint that Leerie had been going to his room. One night, +when she was head night nurse in the Surgical and Miss Jacobs was fourth +corridor nurse, Miss Jacobs called me up at two in the morning and told me +Leerie had been in Doctor Brainard's room for an hour. I came at once and +found her there. She made no explanation, offered no excuses. She even +acknowledged that she had been there twice before at the same time." + +"What did Brainard say?" Peter asked it through clenched teeth. + +"Nothing then. But later, when he was called before the Board, he laughed +and asked what a man could say when a nurse chose to come to his room at +two in the morning." + +"The cad!" and Peter swore under his breath. + +"I should have believed in Leerie, anyway, but it was that laugh of Doctor +Brainard's that made me determined to fight for her. What motive Doctor +Brainard had for not defending her I don't know, but he acted like a +scoundrel." + +"But why?" Peter beat the air. "Oh, the girl must have known she couldn't +run amuck with convention that way and not have it hurt her! Why did she +do it?" + +The superintendent of nurses looked long and thoughtfully at him. "Do you +know, Mr. Brooks, if I happened to be the man who loved Sheila O'Leary, I +think I'd find that out as soon as I could. The answer might prove +valuable; it might solve the riddle why Sheila doesn't want Doctor Dempsy +operated on here." + +"Well, is he going to be?" + +"No, we'll take him on to the Dentons if he can be moved again after he +gets here." + +But fate willed otherwise. When Doctor Dempsy arrived on the early train +there were no conflicting opinions as to his condition; it was critical, +and there would have to be an operation within twenty-four hours. Miss +Maxwell brought the news to Peter along with the doctor's wish that his +friend should be with him as long as the powers allowed. + +"Does Leerie know?" asked Peter. + +"She was present at the consultation." + +"What did she say?" + +"Nothing. But she looked very white and drawn. I'm afraid she hasn't slept +much." + +"Good Lord! you don't believe she really thinks Brainard will bungle!" + +But Miss Maxwell cut him short. "This is no time to bother with futile +suppositions. Please, Mr. Brooks! Remember that for all our sakes--Doctor +Dempsy's most of all--this is the time to keep our nerve and think only +one way." With a grave shake of the head she left him at the door of +Doctor Dempsy's room. + +To Peter the day crept on at a snail's pace; to Sheila it galloped. Peter +saw her just once, when, at Doctor Dempsy's urgent wish, she came in for +a moment between operations, muffled to the eyes in her gown and mask. + +"Come here, child." The old doctor held out a commanding hand and drew the +nurse close to the bed. "I've had something on my mind ever since I saw +your face this morning. Might as well say it now before I forget it." He +smiled up gently at the great, deep-gray eyes looking down wistfully at +him. "I imagine that you two youngsters may be fretting some over +to-morrow--seven A.M. Hey? Mean trick to saddle you with the +responsibility of an old, worn-out hulk like mine, with the chances +fifty-fifty on patching it up. What I wanted to say was that you mustn't +take it too hard if I don't patch. 'Pon my soul I sha'n't mind for +myself." + +A voice called from the corridor outside, "Miss O'Leary, Doctor Brainard's +waiting." + +Doctor Dempsy gave the hand inside the rubber glove a tight squeeze. +"Remember, Leerie, I know you'll keep the little old lantern burning for +me as long as you can, and here's good luck, whatever happens." + +She went without a word. Peter had become vastly absorbed at the window +in watching Hennessy sweeping a gathering of leaves from the curb. When +he finally came back to his chair by the bedside he flattered himself that +his expression was beatifically cheerful and his voice perfectly steady. + +As the day waned a storm gathered, and by nightfall the sanitarium and the +surrounding country were in the grip of a full-fledged equinoctial. Doctor +Dempsy was put to bed early, and Peter went back to his room in the main +building to write himself into a state of temporary forgetfulness, if he +could. He had tinkered with his pen, sharpened half a dozen pencils, and +mussed up as many sheets of paper when a knock brought him to his feet. +Sheila O'Leary stood at the door. Her lips were bravely trying to smile +away the haggard lines of the face. + +Unconsciously Peter's arms went out to her as he repeated that old cry of +his in the days when he was a sufferer in the Surgical, "Why--why, it's +Leerie!" and his love seemed to pound through every syllable. + +For the flash of a second the eyes of the girl leaped to his in answer, +but in another flash they seemed to have traveled miles away, looking back +at him with the sadness of a lost angel. "Yes, it's Leerie again--come +for help," she announced, tersely. + +"All right." Peter tried to sound matter-of-fact. + +"Don't ask questions; just do it. Will you?" + +Peter nodded. + +"You said once if you had to, you could drive through any storm, snow, +hail, or rain, that you had ever seen. Yes? Then get your car and take +Doctor Brainard out to-night. Take him anywhere, and keep him going till +he's so tired he's ready to drop. Talk to him, tell him stories, don't let +him talk about himself--or to-morrow. And bring him home when you think he +can sleep." + +"Yes. What are you going to do?" + +"Sleep, I hope." She turned to go, but came back again and laid a cold +hand in Peter's. "Thank you. Don't think I don't appreciate it." + +"Wait a minute. As it happens, I haven't met Doctor Brainard, and there's +a perfectly good chance he may not care about joy-riding in a young +hurricane--even in my company," Peter ended ironically. + +Leerie gave a little hollow laugh. "Oh, he'll go--don't worry. I'll bring +him down and introduce him. Ready in ten minutes?" And this time she was +gone. + +Peter knew if he lived to the ripe old age of Solomon himself he should +never forget the smallest detail of that night--Doctor Brainard's curt, +almost surly greeting, the plunge into the car, and the start. After that +Peter felt like a mythological being piloting the elements. He headed for +a state road, and for miles, neither of them speaking, the car streaked +over what might have been the surface of the river of Lethe, or the strata +of mist lying above Niflheim, for all the feeling of reality and substance +it gave. He had the eery sensation that he might be forced to keep on and +on till the end of the world, like the Flying Dutchman. He wondered what +sin of his own or some one's else he might be expiating. They passed no +living or mechanical thing; they had the road, the night, the storm to +themselves. They might have gone ten miles or thirty before Doctor +Brainard broke the silence. + +"Gad! but you can drive!" + +"Thank you. Like it?" + +"Not exactly. But it's better than thinking." + +"Works the other way with me; this sets me thinking." A sudden, heavier +gust sent the car skidding across the road, and Peter's attention went to +his wheel. Righting it, he went on, "This is the second time in my life +I've felt something controlling me that was stronger than my own will." + +"Nasty feeling. Lucky man if you've only felt it twice. What was it the +first time?" + +"Fear. That's what brought me here." + +Peter felt the eyes of the doctor studying him in the dark. "I heard about +your case. It was Leerie brought you through, too, wasn't it?" + +Quick as a flash Peter turned. For the instant he forgot they were +speeding at a forbidden rate down slippery macadam in a tempest, with his +hand as the only controlling force. He almost dropped his wheel. "Why +'_too_'? Is she pulling you through something?" + +He could hear a heavy intake of breath beside him. Unconsciously he knew +that his companion was no longer sitting limp with relaxed muscles. He +seemed to feel every nerve and fiber in the body of the surgeon growing +tense, which made his careless, inconsequential tone sound the more +strange when he finally spoke: + +"That's an odd question to put to a doctor. I was referring to Leerie's +cases. She's pulled through hundreds of patients, you know; she's famous +for it." + +"Yes, I know," answered Peter. His voice sounded just as careless, but the +hands that gripped the wheel were as taut as steel. + +They swept on for another half-hour, the silence broken by an occasional +yawn from the surgeon. At last Peter slowed down and looked at his watch. +"Eleven-thirty. If we turn now we'll make the San about one. How's that +for bedtime?" + +"Gad! I'm ready now," and the doctor yawned again. + +Peter timed it to a nicety. It was five minutes past one as he dropped +Doctor Brainard at the Surgical, where he roomed. He was just driving off +when Miss Jacobs hurried out of the entrance. + +"Oh, Mr. Brooks, wait a minute, please. Doctor Dempsy isn't resting very +well, and Miss Maxwell left word that if he called for you, you could sit +with him. We can't get him to sleep, and he does want you." + +"All right. I'll leave the car and come back." + +As Peter took his chair again by his friend's bedside his face was set to +as strong a purpose as Sheila O'Leary's had shown that day in the +sanitarium grounds. "Want me to talk, old man?" he asked, quietly. "Maybe +I can yarn you into forty winks. Shall I try?" + +"Wish you would. It's funny how a man can go through this with a thousand +or so patients and it seems like an every-day affair, but when it's +himself--well, there's the rub." And the doctor smiled a bit sheepishly at +his own ungovernable nerves. + +Peter gripped his hand understandingly. "I know. It's the difference +between fiction and autobiography as far as it touches your own sense of +reality. Well, to-night shall we try fiction? Ever since they pulled me +through here, I've had my mind on a yarn with a sanitarium or hospital for +a background and a doctor for a hero. All this atmosphere gets into your +blood. It keeps you guessing until you have to spin a yarn and use up the +material." + +"Anything for copy, hey?" the doctor chuckled. + +"That's about it. Well, my yarn runs about this way." With the skill of an +artist and the sympathy of a humanist--and the suppressed excitement of +one who has something at stake--Peter drew his two principal characters, +the conscientious, sensitive doctor possessed with the constant fear of +that hypothetical case he might lose some day, and the smooth, scheming +man a few years his senior who wanted to get his fellow-practitioner out +of the way and marry the girl they both loved. Peter made the girl as +adorable as a man in love might picture her. + +"For a sixpence I'd wager you had fallen in love yourself." Doctor Dempsy +chuckled again. "I never before knew you to be so keen over feminine +charms." + +"Just more copy," and Peter went on with the tale. "Well, the young chap's +horror and fear kept growing with each new case, and the other chap kept +sneering and suggesting that his nerves weren't fit, and his hand wasn't +steady, and he worked too slowly. He kept it up until he got what he +wanted; the young chap bungled his operation and lost his case." + +"Poor devil! I know just what kind of torment he lived through." Doctor +Dempsy raised himself on an elbow and shook his head at Peter. "A case +like that may be fiction to you, but it's fact to us in the profession. +You have no idea how often a youngster's nerves fail him." + +"Guess I'm getting the idea. But I need your help to finish the yarn. Of +course the hospital couldn't bounce him for losing one case. They would +have to prove first that he wasn't fit, wouldn't they?" + +"They would have to make him out incompetent." + +Peter nodded. Had there been more light in the room Doctor Dempsy might +have been startled at the unprecedented expression of cunning that had +crept into his friend's face. "I'm not up enough in medical matters to +know what I could prove against the young chap to put him out. You'll have +to help me. Just how could his rival oust him?" + +"Accuse him of drugs," came the unhesitating answer. "That's the most +plausible, and it's what plays havoc with young surgeons quicker than +anything else. They feel their nerves going, and they take a hypodermic; +it steadies them until--it gets them. If you can make your villain +convince the staff that drugs are back of the lost case, you can get your +poor devil of a surgeon permanently disposed of." + +Peter let out a long-drawn breath. "Thank you, Doc. You've helped me +out--considerably." + +It does not in the least matter how Peter finished the tale. Before the +inevitable conclusion Doctor Dempsy dropped off to sleep, and no one but +Peter himself heard the final, "And they married and lived happy ever +after. By Jupiter they did!" + +He slipped softly out of the room and stood a moment in the corridor, +wondering what he would do next. Sleep seemed unnecessary just then, as +well as undesirable. And as he stood there, innocent of all intention of +eavesdropping, he had that rare experience of hearing history repeat +itself. From around the bend of the corridor, out of sight, came the low +but distinct whisper of the night nurse's voice at the house 'phone. + +"Miss Maxwell, Miss Maxwell, can you hear me? This is Miss Jacobs. Leerie +went to Doctor Brainard's room a half-hour ago. She's still there.... All +right." And then the soft click of the receiver dropping into place. + +Peter stiffened; his hands clenched. His first impulse was to creep 'round +and quietly choke the tattle-tale breath out of Miss Jacobs. He knew how +the little green-eyed nurse was gloating over this second incrimination of +Leerie. But there was something more compelling to do first, something +that could not wait. He slipped 'round through the supply-room and down +the back stairs. He reached the first floor of the Surgical just as the +superintendent of nurses appeared in the entrance. + +"You!" demanded Miss Maxwell. + +"No one else," agreed Peter. "Suppose we go up together." + +Peter could have almost laughed at the look of dumfounded amazement on the +superintendent's face. "You mean--Why, that's impossible! It isn't your +place--" + +Peter cut her short. "Oh yes, it is. Remember the advice you gave me a few +hours ago. I'm here to find out what's back of it all, and no one is +going to stop me." His jaws snapped with an ominous finality. + +Doctor Brainard opened to their knock, but he held the door so that barely +a corner of the room was visible, and he blocked the entrance. + +"Open it wider!" commanded Peter. "We've come to stay a few minutes and +ask Miss O'Leary a few questions," and he thrust the surgeon quickly aside +and flung wide the door. + +Sheila was sitting by a reading-lamp, an open book on her lap. She looked +as Peter had seen her in the early evening, only back of the tiredness and +pallor was a strange look of peace. To Peter she seemed a crucified saint +who had suddenly discovered that nail wounds were harmless. She smiled +faintly at them both. "I'm sorry it's happened again, Miss Maxwell. If +you'll just go away and try to forget about it until after the morning, +I'll send in my resignation and leave as soon as you can fill my place. +And can't we do it this time without any Board meeting? I'll promise never +to come back." + +"Then there are going to be no explanations this time--either?" There was +pleading in the superintendent's voice, as well as infinite sadness. + +The girl shook her head. "There's nothing to explain. I'm just here." She +folded her hands quietly on her lap. "Won't you please go?" + +"No, we won't!" Peter thundered it forth. Then he turned to the surgeon, +and there was no pleading in his voice. "You cur! you cad! What have you +got to say?" + +Doctor Brainard jumped as if Peter had struck him; for the instant he +seemed to find speech difficult. "Why--why, what do you mean? How dare +you--" + +"I dare you," and Peter shot out each word with the directness of a +hand-grenade, "I dare you to stand up like a man and tell why Miss O'Leary +came here to-night. You sneaked behind her silence three years ago; don't +be a cursed coward and do it again." + +The surgeon laughed a dry, unpleasant laugh. "It's easy to call another +man names--but it doesn't mean anything. And what right have you to ask me +to betray Miss O'Leary's silence?" + +"Betray!" Peter fairly howled back the word at him. "Take off your coat. +Take it off, or I'll rip it off. Now roll up your sleeves--no, your left. +There, by Jupiter! Look, Miss Maxwell!" + +Peter's demand was unnecessary. The eyes of the superintendent were +already fixed on the manifold tiny blue discolorations in the surgeon's +bare arm. "Cocaine." She almost whispered it under her breath, and then +louder, "How long?" + +"Four years, about." The surgeon's voice was quite toneless; he seemed to +shrink and grow old while they watched him. + +Miss Maxwell looked across at the girl, who was leaning forward, her face +in her hands, crying softly. Her eyes were bitterly accusing, and there +was abundant scorn in her voice when she spoke again to the surgeon. "So +Leerie has been shielding you all along and helping you to fight it. How +did she know?" + +"I told her. I thought if some one with a courage and trust like hers knew +about it it might pull me together. God! I wish I'd killed myself three +years ago." + +"Pity you didn't!" There was no mercy in Peter's voice. "But I suppose she +wouldn't let you; I suppose she held you together then as she's trying to +now. She's trying to save you for to-morrow--seven A.M.--and all the +to-morrows coming after. I--I think I'm beginning to understand." His arms +dropped dejectedly to his sides. For Peter there could be but one meaning +to Sheila's sacrifice and struggle. + +But Miss Maxwell was holding fast to her cross-examination. "And I suppose +you promised Leerie three years ago if she'd keep silent you would fight +it through and break the habit. And that's why you've let no one but +Leerie and Miss Jacobs in the operating-room, so no one else would guess. +Did Miss Jacobs find out three years ago?" + +Doctor Brainard nodded. + +Words failed the superintendent, but her expression boded ill for the +little green-eyed nurse. "Well," she said, at length, "there's only one +thing that matters right now--are you or are you not going to be in a fit +condition to operate to-morrow?" + +It was Leerie who answered. She was out of her chair at a bound and beside +the surgeon, her hand on his arm. "He's going to operate; he's got to. +There isn't another skilled hand like his nearer than the Dentons, so +he's got to bring Doctor Dempsy through. Please, Miss Maxwell, leave him +to me. I can manage. He's got four hours to sleep, and then I'll let him +have enough cocaine to steady him. Won't you trust me?" + +"It's about the only way now." + +Peter left unnoticed. He realized, as he had realized in the sanitarium +grounds that afternoon, that he counted about as much in this crisis as a +part of the inanimate surroundings. Miss Maxwell joined him a moment +later, looking outrageously relieved. She flashed Peter an apologetic +smile. + +"I know it's shameless of me to look glad when you look so miserable. But +I can't help feeling that we are going to win. Leerie deserves it after +what she's suffered for him. That man couldn't fail her, and her trust is +bound to make good. Don't you see?" + +Peter's shoulders gave an unconvincing shrug. "I hope so. He ought to--if +he's half-way a man." He looked at his watch. "Almost morning now. Guess +I'll pack my things and be ready to start as soon as I know Dempsy's all +right." + +Miss Maxwell held him back for an instant. "I know you're thinking that +all's wrong with the world, but I know all's right. Go and pack if you +must, but please stay in your room until I send you word. Promise?" + +And not caring, Peter promised. + +From seven o'clock on Peter paced the room among his packed luggage and +counted the minutes. He wondered how long his patience would last and when +his misery would stop growing. The burden of both had become unbearable. +At eight-thirty a sharp knock sounded and he sprang to the door. On the +threshold stood a nurse in surgical wrappings, with eyes that shone like a +whole firmament of stars and a mouth that curved to the gentle demureness +of a nun. Peter stood and stared at this unexpected apparition of the old +Leerie. + +"Well," said the apparition, smiling radiantly as of old, "I'm a messenger +of glad tidings. Won't you ask me to come in?" + +Peter flushed and drew her to a chair. + +"Oh, it was a wonderful operation. It seemed almost like performing a +miracle, and that blessed old doctor is coming out of the ether like a +baby." + +"Maybe it was a miracle--the miracle of a woman's trust." + +A look of rare tenderness swept into the girl's face. "Thank you. I wonder +if you know how often you say the kindest and most comforting thing." Then +she sobered. "He's made a brave fight, and it wasn't easy to pull himself +together, in the face of what he knew you were all thinking of him, and do +such a tremendous piece of work. I want you to understand. He's a +brilliant surgeon; it didn't seem right that he should be lost to himself +and the profession. And the best of it is, he isn't going to be. The San +is going to stand by him; every doctor on the staff is willing to help +him. As soon as Doctor Jefferson is back, Doctor Brainard is to stop work +until--until he's fit again. Isn't that splendid! Oh, I could sing! I keep +saying over those great Hebrew words of comfort, 'Weeping may tarry +through the night, but joy cometh in the morning.'" + +"Yes," said Peter, dully. "I'm glad joy has come for you. May I wish you +and Doctor Brainard all success and happiness?" + +Sheila's eyes looked into Peter's with a sudden intensity. "You may--but +not together. Have you actually been thinking that I loved Doctor +Brainard?" A hint of the old bitterness crept into her voice. "I can pity +a man like that, but love him--love weakness and selfishness--and the +willingness to betray a woman's honor--no! Three years ago he killed +whatever personal feeling I might have had for him, and he made me hate +all men." + +"And you're still hating them?" Peter held fast to his rising hopes while +he hung eagerly on her answer. + +"No. Ever since a fine, strong, unselfish man came into my life it has set +me loving all mankind so scandalously that I'm afraid the only way to make +me respectable is--for some man to marry me." Leerie's arms went out to +Peter in complete surrender. "Oh, Peter--Peter--it's morning!" + +But it was almost noon before Peter began to think intelligently again, +and then he remembered something, something that ought to be done. "I +think," he said, "I think we ought to go out and tell Hennessy and the +swans; we sort of owe it to them." + +And it all ended even as Peter had prophesied in his yarn by Doctor +Dempsy's bedside. + + + + +Chapter V + +THE LAST OF THE SURGICAL + + +Things have a way of beginning casually, so casually that you think they +are bound to spin themselves out into airy nothings. The first inkling you +have to the contrary is that headlong plunge into one of the big moments +of your life, perhaps the biggest. But you never cease to wonder at the +innocent, inconsequential way it began. These are the moments when you can +picture Fate, sitting like an omnipotent operator before some giant +switchboard, playing with signals and the like. I dare say he grins like a +mischievous little boy who delights in turning things topsy-turvy whenever +he has a chance. + +Fate had been busy at this for some time when the sanitarium, quite +oblivious of any signal connection, set itself to the glorious business of +getting Sheila O'Leary married. Grief, despair, disappointment came often +to the San, death not infrequently, but happiness rarely, and there had +never before been such a joyous, personal happiness as this one. Small +wonder that the San should gather it close to its heart and gloat over it! +Was not Sheila one of its very own, born under its portals, trained in its +school, placed above all its nurses, and loved beyond all else? And Peter +Brooks. Had not the San given him his life and Sheila? It certainly was a +time for rejoicing. As Hennessy had voiced it: + +"Sure, half the weddin's ye go to ye sit miserable, thinkin' the man isn't +good enough for the lass, or the lass is no mate for the man. But, glory +be to Pether! here's a weddin' at last that God Almighty might be cryin' +the banns for." + +They were to be married within the month. Every one was agreed to this, +from the superintendent down to Flanders, the bus-driver--yes, and even +the lovers themselves. The San forgot its aches and sorrows in the +excitement of planning an early summer wedding. + +"We'll make the chapel look lovely," chirped the Reverend Mrs. Grumble, +clasping and unclasping her hands in a fidget of anticipation. "There'll +be enough roses and madonna lilies in the gardens to bank every pew and +make an arch over the chancel." + +"Well, if Leerie's married in the chapel, half of us can't get in." And +Madam Courot shook her head in emphatic disapproval. "She'd better take +the Congregational church. That's the only place large enough to hold +everybody who will want to come." + +A mutinous murmur rose and circled the patients on the veranda. Not +married at the San! It was unthinkable. So this point and the final date +Sheila settled for them. + +"We'll have the wedding in the gardens, save all the fuss and waste of +picking the flowers, be ever so much prettier, and everybody and his +neighbor can come." + +When Hennessy heard of it he shirred his mouth into a pucker and whistled +ecstatically. "'Tis like her, just! Married out-o'-doors wi' the growin' +things to stand up wi' her and the blessed sun on her head. Faith, +Hennessy will have to be scrubbin' up the swans an' puttin' white satin +bows round their necks." + +Sheila chose the hour before sunset on an early day of June, and the San +speedily set itself to the task of praying off the rain and arranging the +delightful details of attendants, refreshments, music, and all the other +non-essentials of a successful wedding. Miss Maxwell, the superintendent +of nurses, took the trousseau in hand and portioned out piles of napery +and underwear to the eager hands of the nurses to embroider. The whole +sanitarium was suddenly metamorphosed into a Dorcas Society; patients +forgot to be querulous, and refused extra rubbings and all unnecessary +tending, that more stitches might be taken in the twenty-four hours of the +hospital day. A great rivalry sprang up between the day and night nurses +as to which group would finish the most, and old Mr. Crotchets, the +cynical bachelor with liver complaint and a supposedly atrophied heart, +offered to the winning shift the biggest box of candy New York could put +up. + +Through the first days of her happiness Sheila walked like a lambent being +of another world, whose radiance was almost blinding. Those who had known +her best, who had felt her warmth and beauty in spite of that bitterness +which had been her shield against the hurt she had battled with so long, +looked upon her now with unfathomable wonder. And Peter, who had worshiped +her from the moment she had taken his hand and led him back to the ways of +health, watched her as the men of olden times must have watched the +goddesses that occasionally graced their earth. + +"Beloved, you're almost too wonderful for an every-day, Sunday-edition +newspaper-man like me," Peter whispered to her in the hush of one +twilight, as they sat together in the rest-house, watching Hennessy feed +the swans. + +"Every woman is, when the miracle of her life has been wrought for her. +Man of mine," and Sheila reached out to Peter's ever waiting arms, +"wouldn't God be niggardly not to let me seem beautiful to you now?" + +Peter laughed softly. "If you're beautiful now, what will you be when--" + +Sheila hushed him. "Listen, Peter, our happiness frightens me, it's so +tremendous for just two people--almost more than our share of life. I know +I seem foolish, but long ago I made up my mind I should have to do +without love and all that goes with it, and now that it has come--sorrow, +death, never frightened me, but this does." + +"Glad I have the courage for two, then. Look here, Leerie, the more +happiness we have the more we can spill over into other lives and the +brighter you can burn your lamp for the ones in the dark. This old world +needs all the happiness it can get now. So?" + +Sheila smiled, satisfied. "You always understand. If I ever write out a +prescription for love, I shall make understanding one-third of the dose. +Let's go into partnership, Brooks and O'Leary, Distillers and Dispensers +of Happiness." + +"All right, but the firm's wrong. It's going to be Brooks and Brooks," and +Peter kissed her. + +"There is one thing," and Sheila gently disentangled herself. "There are +days and days before the wedding, and if everybody thinks I am going to do +nothing until then, everybody is very much mistaken. I'm going in this +minute to sign up for my last case in the Surgical." + +It must have been just at this moment that Fate turned on an arbitrary +signal-light and changed a switch. I should like to think that back of his +grin lurked a tiny shadow of contrition. + +"And what am I going to do?" Peter called dolefully after her. + +"Oh, I don't know. You might write an article on the dangers and +uncertainties of marrying any woman in a profession." And she blew him a +farewell kiss. + +The train from the city, that night, brought a handful of patients, and +one of these wore the uniform and insignia of a lieutenant of the +Engineers. His mother came with him. She had been an old patient, and +because of extraordinary circumstances--I use the government term--she had +obtained his discharge from a military hospital and had brought him to the +San to mend. + +"The wounds are slow in closing, and there's some nervous trouble," Miss +Maxwell explained to Sheila. "The boy's face is rather tragic. Will you +take the case?" + +She accepted with her usual curt nod and a hasty departure for her +uniform. A half-hour later she was back in the Surgical, her fear as well +as her happiness forgotten in the call of another human being in distress. +The superintendent of nurses was right: the boy's face was tragic, and a +frail little mother hovered over him as if she would breathe into his +lungs the last breath from her own. She looked up wistfully, a little +fearsomely, as Sheila entered; then a smile of thanksgiving swept her face +like a flash of sunlight. + +"Oh, I'm so glad! I remember you well. I hoped--but it hardly seemed +possible--I didn't dare really to expect it. When I was here before, you +were always so needed, and my boy--of course there is nothing +serious--only--" and the shaking voice ended as incoherently as it had +begun. + +The nurse took the withered hands held out to her in her young, warm ones. +In an instant she saw all that the little mother had been through--the +renunciation months before when she had given her boy up to his country; +the long, weary weeks of learning to do without him; the schooling it had +taken to grow patient, waiting for the letters that came sparingly or not +at all; and at last the news that he was at the front, under fire, when +the papers published all the news there was to be told. Sheila saw it +all, even to her blind, frantic groping for the God she had only half +known and into whose hands she had never wholly given the keeping of her +loved ones. And after that the cable and the waiting for what was left of +her boy to come home to her. As she looked down at her, Sheila had the +strange feeling that this frail little mother was dividing the care of her +boy between God and herself, and she smiled unconsciously at this new +partnership. + +Gently she laid her hand on the lean, brown one resting on the coverlet; +the boy opened his eyes. "It's going to be fine to have a soldier for a +patient; I expect you know how to obey orders. You are our first, and +we're going to make your getting well just the happiest time in all your +life, the little mother and I." + +The boy made no response. He looked at his mother as if he understood, and +then with a groan of utter misery he turned away his head and closed his +eyes again. "Ah-h-h!" thought Sheila, and a little later she drew the +mother into the corridor beyond earshot. + +"There's something ailing him besides wounds. What is it?" + +"Clarisse." The promptness of the answer brought considerable relief to +the nurse. It was easy to deal with the things one knew; it was the hidden +things, tucked away in the corners of the subconscious mind or the +super-sensitive soul, that never saw the light of open confession, that +were the baffling obstacles to nursing. Sheila never dreaded what she +knew. + +"Well, what's the matter with Clarisse?" she asked, cheerfully. + +The little mother hesitated. Evidently it was hard to put it into words. +"They're engaged, she and Phil, and Phil doesn't want to see her, shrinks +from the very thought of it. That's what's keeping him from getting +better, I think. She's very young and oh, so pretty. They were both young +when Phil went away--but Phil--" She stopped and passed a fluttering hand +across her forehead; her lips quivered the barest bit. "Phil has come back +so old. That's what war does for our boys; in just a few months it turns +them into old men, the serious ones--and their eyes are older than any +living person's I ever saw." + +"And Clarisse is still young. I think I understand." + +"That's why I brought him here. In the city there would have been no +reason for her not coming to the hospital, but she couldn't come here +unless we sent for her--could she?" Again the fluttering hand groped as if +to untangle the complexity of thoughts and feelings in the poor confused +head. "I write her letters. I make them just as pleasant as I can. I don't +want to hurt her; she's so young." + +Sheila nodded. "Does he love her?" That was the most important, for to +Sheila love was the key that could spring the lock of every barrier. + +"He did, and I think she loves him--I think--" + +Sheila went back to her patient and began the welding of a comradeship +that only such a woman can weld when her heart is full with love for +another man. Day by day she made him talk more. He told her of his +soldiering; apparently everything that had happened before held little or +no place in his scheme of life, and he told it as simply and directly as +if he had been a child. He made her see the months of training in camp, +when he grew to know his company and feel for the first time what the +brotherhood of arms meant. He told of the excitement of departure, the +spiritual thrill of marching forth to war with the heart of a crusader in +every boy's breast. His eyes shone when he spoke of their renunciation, of +the glory of putting behind them home and love until the world should be +made clean again and fit for happiness. + +Sheila winced at this, but the boy did not notice; he was too absorbed in +the things he had to tell. + +He told of the days of waiting in France, with the battle-front before +them like a mammoth drop-curtain, screening the biggest drama their lives +would ever know. "There we were, marking time with the big guns, wondering +if our turn would come next. That was a glorious feeling, worth all that +came afterward--when the curtain went up for us." + +He raised himself on an elbow and looked into Sheila's cool, gray eyes +with eyes that burned of battle. "God! I can't tell you about it. There +have been millions of war books written by men who have seen more than I +have and who have the trick of words--and you've probably read them; you +know. Only reading isn't seeing it; it isn't _living it_." He turned +quickly, shooting out a hand and gripping hers hard. "Tell me; you've seen +all sorts of operations--horrible ones, where they take out great pieces +of malignant stuff that is eating the life out of a man. You've seen +that?" + +The nurse nodded. + +"Did you forget it afterward, when the body was clean and whole again? +Could you forget the thing that had been there? For that's war. That's +what we're fighting, the thing that's eating into the heart of a decent, +sound world, and since I've seen the horror of it I can't forget. I can't +see the healing--yet." + +"You will. Not at first, perhaps, but when you're stronger. That is one of +God's blessed plans: He made beauty to be immortal and ugliness to die and +be forgotten. And even the scars where ugliness was time whitens and +obliterates. Give time its chance." + +It was the next day that the boy spoke of Clarisse. "Will time make them +all right, too? Leerie," he had picked up the nickname from the other +nurses and appropriated it with all the ardent affection of worshiping +youth, "we're miles--ages--apart. Can anything under God's canopy bring us +together, I wonder?" + +"Perhaps." Sheila smiled her old inscrutable smile. "Tell me more." + +And so he told her of the girl who was so young, and oh, so pretty. It had +all seemed right before he had gone to camp; it was the great love for +him, something that had made his going seem the worthier. But at camp the +distance between them had begun to widen, her letters had failed to bridge +it, and through those letters he had discovered a new angle of her, an +angle so acute that it had cut straight to the heart and destroyed all the +love that had been there. At least that was what he thought. + +"I knew she was young, of course, not much more than a child, and I knew +she loved fun and good times, and all that, but--Why, she'd write about +week-end parties, and how becoming her bathing-suit was, and what Tommy +Flint said about her fox-trotting. Lord!" He writhed under the coverlet +and ground his nails into his palms. "We marched through places where +there wasn't a shred of anything left for anybody. We saw old women +hanging on to broken platters and empty bird-cages because it was all they +had left--home, children, everything gone. And on top of that would come a +letter telling how much she'd spent on an evening gown, and how Bob Wylie +took them out to Riverdale and blew in a hundred and twenty dollars on the +day's trip. A hundred and twenty dollars! That would have bought a young +ocean of milk over there for the refugee kids I saw starving." + +He jerked himself up suddenly and sat huddled over, his eyes kindling with +a vision of purging the world. Sheila knew it was useless to stop him, so +she propped him up with pillows and let him go on. + +"And that wasn't all. Between the lulls in the fighting they moved us +along to a quiet sector, to freshen up, where we were so close to the +German side that we could look into one of their captured villages. There +we could see the French girls they'd carried off going out to work, saw +them corralled at night like--" He broke off, hesitated, then went +doggedly on. "With field-glasses we could see them plainly, the loads +they had to lift and carry, the beatings they got, the look in their +faces. Their shoulders were crooked, their backs bent from the long +slaving. They were wraiths, most of them--and some with babies at their +breasts. After I got back from seeing that, I found another letter from +Clarisse. She said the girls just couldn't buckle down to much Red Cross +work; it was so hard to do anything much in summer. They'd no sooner get +started than some one would say tennis or a swim. _And I saw women dying +over there--and bearing Boche babies!_" + +All the agony of soul that youth can compass was poured forth in those +last words. The boy leaned back on his pillows, weary unto death with the +hopelessness of it all. So Sheila let him lie for a while before she +answered him. + +"Do the boys want their girls to know the full horror of it all? I thought +that was one of the things you were fighting for, to keep as much of it +away from them as you could." + +The boy raised a hand in protest, but Sheila silenced him. "Wait a minute; +it's my turn to talk now. I know what's in your mind. You think that +Clarisse--and the girls like her--are showing unforgivable callousness +and flippancy in the face of this world tragedy. Instead of becoming women +as you have become men, they stay silly, unthinking, irresponsible +creatures who dance and play and laugh while you fight and die. The +contrast is too colossal; it all seems past remedy. Isn't that so? Well, +there's another side, a side you haven't thought of. The girls are giving +you up. The little they know of life, as it is now, looks very +overwhelming to them. Perhaps it frightens them. And what do frightened +children do in the dark?" + +The boy did not try to answer; he waited, tensely eager. + +"Why, they sing; they laugh little short-breathed laughs; they tell +stories to themselves of nonsensical things to reassure them. All the time +they are trying not to think of what terrors the dark may hold; they are +trying not to cry out for some one to come and sit with them. Some of our +girls are doing a tremendous work. They meet trains at all hours of the +day or night and feed the boys before they sail; they wait all day in the +canteens until they're ready to drop; they put in a lot more time, making +comfort-kits, knitting, and rolling bandages, than they ever own to. And +suppose they don't grow dreadfully serious; isn't it better that way? The +girls are doing their bit as fast as they are learning how. It isn't fair +of the boys to judge them too soon. It isn't fair of you to judge your +Clarisse without giving her a chance." + +"You didn't read those letters." + +"Letters! Most of us, when we write, keep back the things that really +matter and skim off the surface of our lives to tell about. There may not +be the sixteenth part of your girl in those letters." + +The boy's lips tightened stubbornly. "It wasn't just one--it was all of +them. Anyhow, I haven't the nerve or the heart to find out." + +Again Sheila let the silence fall between them. When she spoke, her voice +was very tender. "Tell me, boy, what made you love her?" + +He smiled sheepishly. "Oh, I don't know. She was always a good sport, +never got grumpy over things that happened, never got cold feet, either. +She had a way of teasing you to do what she wanted, would do anything to +get her way; and then she'd turn about so quickly and give you your way, +after all--just make you take it. And she'd be so awfully sweet about it, +too. And she'd always play fair, and she had a way of making you feel the +best ever. Oh, I don't know--" The boy looked about him helplessly. "They +sound awfully foolish reasons for loving a girl." + +Sheila's face had become suddenly radiant; her eyes sparkled like +rushlights in a wind. They actually startled the boy so that he +straightened up in bed again and gripped her hand. "I say, Leerie, what is +it? I never saw you look like this before. You're--Are you in love?" + +"With one of the finest men God ever made. He's so fine that he trusted me +through a terrible bungle--believed in the real woman in me when I would +have denied it. That's what a man's love can do for a woman sometimes, +keep her true to the best in her." + +That night, after many fluttering protests, the little mother wrote a +letter to Clarisse. It was dictated by Sheila and posted by her, and it +contained little information except what might have been extracted from a +non-committal railroad guide. It did mention at the last, however, that +Phil was slowly gaining. + +With this off her mind, Sheila went to find Peter. She had +characteristically neglected him since she had been on the case, and as +characteristically he made no protest. Instead he met her with that quick +understanding that she had claimed as one of love's ingredients. He looked +her over well and proudly, then tapped his head significantly. + +"I see, there's more to this soldier-boy case than just wounds. Want me to +run you down the boulevard while you work it out?" + +"Thank God for a man!" breathed Sheila, and then aloud: "No, it's worked +out. But you might run me down, just the same." + +"Feels almost like frost to-night," said Peter as he put the car into +first. "Do you think it will hold pleasant enough for--" + +"For what?" Sheila's tone sounded blank. + +Peter chuckled. "For the gardens and the old ladies, of course. Have you +by any chance forgotten that there's going to be a wedding in four days?" + +"Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday--" counted Sheila. "Why, so it is!" +Then she echoed Peter's chuckle, "Oh yes, there's going to be a wedding, a +beautiful wedding in four days." + +A strange little twinge took Peter's heart there in the dark at the queer, +impersonal note in what she had said. What did it mean? + +Sheila gave the girl twenty-four hours to reach the San after receiving +the letter; she came in eighteen, and the nurse rejoiced at this good +omen. She had delegated Peter to meet all trains that day, take the girl +to her room, send for her at once, and tell nobody. Peter obeyed, and +early in the afternoon Sheila looked up from her reading to the boy to see +Peter standing in the doorway, the message on his lips. + +"Baggage delivered," was Peter's announcement. + +"Thank you. I'll come in a minute and see if my key fits." She hunted up +the little mother, left her in charge, and hurried over to the nurses' +home. + +There in the big living-hall, perched in a wicker chair under the poster +of Old King Cole, Sheila found the girl, who was young and oh, so pretty. +She looked about as capable of taking a plunge into the grim depths of +life and coming out safely as a toy Pom of weathering the waters of the +Devil's Hole. "How shall I ever push her in?" thought Sheila as she held +out her hand in greeting. + +Clarisse took it with all the hectic impulsiveness of youth. "You're his +nurse. Isn't it great his coming back this way? All our set is engaged--or +about to be--but I'm the only one that's got her man back with battle +scars all over him. Makes me feel like a story-book heroine." + +Sheila O'Leary didn't know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. She ended +by doing what probably surprised her more than it did the girl. She sat +down in the wicker chair herself and gathered the girl into her lap. "Oh, +you blessed, blessed baby!" she crooned softly. + +The girl pouted adorably. It was very evident that she liked to be petted, +coaxed, and spoiled. If there was a woman slumbering under all this +dimpling, infantile charm, she was quite indiscernible to the woman who +held her. + +Slowly she bent over the girl and let her face show all the delight she +could feel in her prettiness and baby ways. There must be sympathy between +them or her task would be hopeless. "There, let me untie that bewitching +bonnet of yours and take off your gloves. We have a lot to tell each other +before you see your soldier." + +"But Phil--won't he be waiting, wondering why I don't come? Oh, I'm just +crazy to see him!" + +"He doesn't know you're here yet." + +"Oh!" The smooth, white forehead did its utmost to manage a frown. "Why, +didn't he send for me?" + +"No." + +"Who did? His mother wrote." + +"I sent." + +The round, childish eyes filled with apprehension; she wrenched herself +free of Sheila's arms. "He isn't going to--The letter said--?" + +"He's better. Sit down, dear. That's what we have to talk over. His body +is mending fast, but his mind--well, his mind has been taken prisoner." + +Clarisse tossed an adorable crown of golden curls. "I don't understand." + +"Didn't expect you to, at first. It's this way. He's been through some +very big, very terrible experiences, and he can't forget them. He isn't +the boy you used to play with, the boy who was happy just having a good +time. He's grown very serious. That's what experience is likely to do for +us all in time, but with him it's come all in a heap. When that happens +you can't go back and be happy in the old way. Do you see?" + +"Go on." + +"He's bound fast and walled about with the memories of what he has been +through--killing human beings, watching his comrades die, seeing what the +Germans have done. For the moment it has made him forget that the sun +shines and birds sing and the world is a place to be glad in. The bright +colors have faded out of life for him; everything looks gray and somber." + +"Gee! and how he used to like a good cabaret with a jazz band!" The girl +whispered it, and there was awe in her voice. "And colors! I had to wear +the gayest things I had, to please him." + +"Yes, I know. And he'll like them best again, some day. Just be patient, +dear. And the waiting won't be hard, you'll have so much to do for him. +You'll have to be bringing the sunshine back, making him listen to the +bird-songs, teaching him how to be glad, to love doing all the happy, +foolish boy-things he used to like." + +"I see--I can." The girl's voice was breathless. + +"I'm sure you can." Sheila tried to put conviction into her words. "At +first you may find it a little hard. It means--" + +"Yes?" + +"It means creeping into his prison with him, so gently, so lovingly, and +staying close beside him while you cut the memory-cords one by one. Could +you do that?" + +The girl sprang past Sheila toward the door. "Come! What are we waiting +for?" + +"But he doesn't know you are here yet," parried the nurse. + +"Let's go and tell him, then. He always adored surprises." The dimples in +her cheeks danced in anticipation while she took Sheila's hand and tried +to drag her nearer the door. But at the threshold something in the woman's +face stopped her. She hesitated. "Maybe--maybe he doesn't like surprises +any more." Again the impulsive hands were thrust into the nurse's. "Tell +me, tell me honestly--You said you sent for me. Was it--Didn't he want +me--to come?" + +And Sheila, remembering what the boy had loved about her, gave her back +the truth: "No, he has grown afraid of you. That's another thing you will +have to bring back to him with the songs and the sunlight--his love for +you." + +Her hand was flung aside and the girl flew past her, back to the wicker +chair under Old King Cole. Burying her head in her arms, she burst into +uncontrollable sobs, while Sheila stood motionless in the doorway and +waited. She must have waited an hour before the girl raised her eyes, wet +as her own. For Sheila knew that a woman's soul was being born into the +world, and none understood better than she what the agony of travail meant +to the child who was giving it birth. + +"Come," said Sheila, gently. + +The girl rose uncertainly; all the divine assurance of youth was gone. "I +think I see," she began unsteadily. "I think I can." + +"I know you can." And this time there was no doubt in Sheila's heart. + +She saw to it that the little mother had been called away before they +reached the Surgical, so that the room was empty except for the occupant +of the cot. "Hello, boy!" she called, triumphantly, from the doorway. "I +have brought you the best present a soldier ever had," and she pushed +Clarisse into the room and closed the door. + +For a moment those two young creatures looked at each other, overcome with +confusion and the self-consciousness of their own great change. + +The boy spoke first. "Clare!" + +"Phil!" It came in a breathless little cry, like a bird's answer to its +mate. Then the girl followed. Across the room she flew, to the bed, and +down on her knees, hiding her face deep in the folds of coverlet and +hospital shirt. Words came forth chokingly at last, like bubbles of air +rising slowly to the surface. + +"Those letters--those awful letters! Just foolish things that didn't +matter. One of the boys at the canteen--I used to wait on the table and +make believe every soldier I served was mine, and I always wore my +prettiest clothes--he said--the boy--that over there they didn't want +anything but light stuff--those were his words--said a chap couldn't stand +hearing that his girl was lonely.... He said to cut out all the blue funks +and the worries; the light stuff helped to steady a chap's nerve. So I--" + +And then the boy lied like a soldier. "Don't, Clare darling. I knew all +along you were playing off like a good sport. And it helped a lot. Gee! +how it helped!" + +When Sheila looked in, hours later, the girl was still by the bed, her +cheek on the pillow beside the boy's. + +It was a strangely illusive Leerie that met Peter that night in the +rest-house after the ailing part of the San had been put safely to bed. +Her eyes seemed to transcend the stars, and her face might have served for +a young neophyte. As Peter saw, for the first time he glimpsed the signal +Fate had been playing with so many days. + +"What's happened? Anything wrong with those cubs?" + +"Nothing. They're as right as right can be." Then with the old directness +Sheila plunged headlong into the thing she knew must be done. "Man of +mine, I'm going to hurt you. Can you forgive and still understand?" + +"I can try." Peter did his best to keep his voice from sounding too heavy, +for a fear was gripping at his heart, and his eyes sought Sheila's face, +pleading as he would never have let his lips plead. + +Sheila covered her eyes. She didn't want to see. It was too reminiscent of +the little boy lying awake in a dark attic, afraid of sleep. "We have both +done without happiness so long, don't you think we can do without it a +little longer?" + +"I suppose so--if we must." Peter's voice was very dull. "But why? I've +always had an idea that happiness was something like opportunity; it had +to be snatched and held fast when it came your way, or you might never +have another chance at it." Had Sheila brought him to the gates of +Paradise only to bar them against his entering? he wondered. + +The woman who loved him understood and laid her hand on his breast as if +she would stay the hurt there if she could. "It may make it easier if you +know that the giving up is going to be hard for me, too. I've thought +about that home of ours so long that I've begun to see it and all that +goes with it. I even stumble upon it in my dreams. It's always at the end +of a long, tired road, going uphill. If I thought I should have to give it +up, I wouldn't have the courage to do what I'm going to now." + +She sat down on the bench, laid her arms over the sill of the rustic +window, and looked toward the pond. The night was very still; the blurred +outlines of the swans, huddled against the bank, were the only signs of +life. When she spoke it was almost to herself. + +"When they sent me away from the San three years ago I thought I could +never bear it--to go away alone, that way, disgraced, to begin work over +again in a strange place, among strange people. But I had to do it, just +as I have to do this." She straightened and faced Peter. Her voice +changed; it belonged to the curt, determined Sheila. + +"I'm going across, to nurse the boys over there. The boy over in the +Surgical pointed the way for me. There's a big thing going on in the +world--something almost as big as the war--it's the business of getting +the boys ready for life after their share in the war is over, and I don't +mean just nursing their bodies back to health. Everything is changed for +them; they've got new standards, new interests, new hearts, new souls, and +we women have got to keep pace with them. And we mustn't fail them--don't +you see that? Oh, I know I have no place of my own in the war: you are +safe, and I have no brothers. But I'm a woman--a nurse, thank God! And I'm +free to go for the mothers and sweethearts who can't. Don't you +understand?" + +And Peter answered from an overwhelmingly full and troubled heart, "Oh +yes, I understand." + +"I knew you would." Sheila raised starry eyes to the man who had never +failed her. "Those boys will need all the sympathy, all the wholesome +tenderness we can send across to them, and they'll need our hands at their +backs until they get their foothold again. I've served my apprenticeship +at that so long I can do it." + +Peter gathered her close in his arms. "God and I know how well." + +It was not until they were leaving the gardens that Peter asked the +question that had been in his mind all through the evening. "What about +the wedding? I suppose you're not going to marry me, now." + +"Can't. Haven't the courage. Man of mine, don't you know that after I once +belonged to you I couldn't leave you? I've only had sips of happiness so +far. If I once drained the cup, only God's hand could take it from me." + +"And the wedding? The old San's just set its heart on that wedding." + +The radiant smile crept back to Sheila's lips. Even in the dark Peter +could tell that the old luminous Leerie was beside him once more. "Why, +that's one of the nicest parts of it all. We're going to pass our wedding +on to those children--make them a sort of wedding-present of it. Won't +that be splendid?" + +"Oh yes," said Peter, without enthusiasm. "Does it suit them?" + +"They don't know yet. Guess I'd better go and tell them." + +It is doubtful if anybody but Sheila O'Leary could have managed such an +affair and left every one reasonably happy over it--two of them +unreasonably so. She accepted the wedding collation bestowed by the +wealthy old ladies of the sanitarium and passed it over to the boy and his +betrothed as if it had been as trivial a gift as an ice-cream cone. In a +like manner she passed on the trousseau, kissed all the nurses rapturously +for their work, and piled it all into Clarisse's arms with the remark that +it was lucky they were so nearly of a size. When she brought the +wedding-dress she kissed her, too, and said that she was going to make the +prettiest picture in it that the San or the soldier had seen in years. She +placated the management; she wheedled Miss Maxwell into a good humor; she +even coaxed Doctor Fuller into giving away the bride. Only Hennessy +refused to be propitiated. + +"Are ye thinkin' of givin' Mr. Brooks away with everythin' else?" he +asked, scornfully; and then, his indignation rising to a white wrath, he +shouted, "I'll not put bows on the swans, an' I'll not come to any +second-hand weddin'." + +But he did come, and held with Flanders the satin ribbons they had +promised to hold for Sheila. And the wedding became one of the greenest +of all the memories that had gone down on the San books. + +As the sun clipped the far-away hills the boy was wheeled down the paths +to where the gold and white of early roses were massed in summer splendor. +Then came the girl with Sheila at her side; the girl had begged too hard +to be refused. But Sheila's face was as white as it had been the day they +operated on Doctor Dempsy, and only Peter guessed what it cost her to +stand with the bride. To Peter's care had been intrusted the little +mother, and he let her weep continually on his shoulder in between the +laughs he kept bringing to her lips. + +And it all ended merrily. Sheila saw to that. But perhaps the thing that +gave her the keenest pleasure was wheedling out of Mr. Crotchets his +bungalow that stood on the slopes beyond the golf-links for a honeymoon. + +"They'll have all the quiet they want and the care he still needs," she +told Peter when they were alone. "And nobody but the nurse in charge knows +about it--yet." Then seeing the great longing in Peter's eyes, she drew +him away from the crowd. "Listen, man of mine! I have the feeling that +when we are married there will be no wedding, just you and I and the +preacher. And in my heart I like it better that way." + +"So do I," agreed Peter. + +"I'm leaving--train to-night," Sheila hurried on. "No use putting it off; +better sail as soon as the passport's ready. There's just one thing more I +want to say before I leave you." + +Then Peter chuckled for the first time that day. "You can say it, of +course, but if you think you're going to leave me behind, you're mistaken. +I wired the chief the day you told me. They need another correspondent +over there. When it comes to passports there is some advantage in not +being a husband, after all. Well--are you glad?" + +When Hennessy came upon them, a few minutes later, they looked so +supremely happy and oblivious of the rest of the world that he was forced +to stop. "Sure, ye might be the bride an' groom, afther all, by the looks +of ye. What's come over ye all of a sudden?" And when Peter told him, and +they both put their hands in Hennessy's in final parting, he shirred his +lips and whistled forth evidence of a satisfied emotion to which he added +a word of warning to Peter: + +"I'm not envyin' ye, just the same, Mr. Brooks. Afore ye get her home +again ye'll find the Irish say right, 'A woman's more throuble to look +afther than a thorn in the foot or a goat fetched back from the fair!'" + + + + +Chapter VI + +MONSIEUR SATAN + + +There had been nothing, perhaps, more radically changed by the rigors of +war than Atlantic transportation. The thrills of pleasure and romance that +attended the tourist in the days before the war had deepened to thrills of +another timbre, while romance had become more epic than idyllic. The happy +phrase of "going abroad" had given place to "going over" or "going +across"; such a trifling difference in words, but the accompaniment comes +in quite another key. It was no longer shouted in a care-free, +happy-go-lucky fashion; it may have had a ring of suppressed exultation; +but it was sure to be whispered with a quick intake of breath, and so +often it came through teeth that were clenched. + +The piers had changed their gala attire. The departure from this country +for another was no longer a matter of mere rejoicing and congratulatory +leave-taking. The gangways no longer swarmed with friends shouting, "Bon +voyage!" There was no free voicing of anticipation, no effervescing of +good humor. The Spirit of Adventure was there, but he had changed his +costume and his make-up. So had the good ships. Their black paint and +white trimmings were gone; gone were the gay red funnels; and in their +stead were massed the grays and blues, the greens and blacks of +camouflage. The piers were deserted. A thin stream of travelers sifted in; +there were a few officials and deckhands; and far outside, beyond hail of +ship or sea or traveler, in a barbed-wire inclosure, guarded by military +police, stood a few scattered, silent figures. They were the remnants war +had left of the once-upon-a-time jocose band of waving, shouting friends. + +All this Sheila O'Leary felt as she stood on the upper deck of a French +liner with Peter Brooks and watched their fellow-passengers board the +ship. She was tingling from head to foot with almost as many emotions as +there are ganglia in the nervous system. It was as if she had suddenly +claimed the world for a patient and had laid fingers to its pulse for the +first time. Eagerly, impatiently, she was waiting to count each successive +beat until she should be able to read into the throbbing rhythm of it all +a meaning for herself. + +As Sheila thought in terms of her work, so Peter thought in terms of his. +It was all copy to him. Each group that followed another up the gangway +carried the promise of a story to Peter. There were Red Cross nurses, +canteen workers, a college unit for reconstruction work, a hospital unit, +scores of detached American officers going over for the first time, scores +of French and British returning, a few foreigners getting back to their +respective countries, and hosts of non-descripts whose civilian clothes +gave no hint of their missions. Last of all came a sudden, swift influx of +celestial blue. + +Peter smiled at them with anticipation, "Look, Leerie, the Blue Devils of +France! There ought to be the making of a good yarn." + +But Sheila barely heard. The mass had captured her imagination on the +instant with a dramatic intensity too overpowering to be denied. +Unconsciously she smiled. They were going back to fight again--to be +wounded. Who knew--in a month she might be nursing some of them. The Blue +Devils had reached the gangway; they were just below them when one looked +up. Black eyes as unfathomable as forest pools looked into Sheila's quiet +gray ones. For a moment there was almost a greeting flashed between them; +as if they recognized something common to them both that lay in the past +or the future. It was one of those gossamer threads of fate that a few +glimpse rarely in their lives. + +Peter saw, and was on the point of giving tongue to his astonishment when +a voice from behind interrupted them: "The ship sails at ten; it lacks +thirty seconds of that. There is the typical instance of the way these +Devils obey their orders. Is it not so?" + +The voice savored of France. Sheila and Peter turned together to find a +little man, with a small, pleasant face, topped with shaggy brown hair, +and dabs of mustache and beard placed like a colon under his nose. His +shrug was the conclusive evidence of his nationality. + +"Well, thirty seconds is enough," laughed Sheila. "Time is as precious as +food, gold, or gunpowder these days. Why waste it?" + +"And men," supplemented the little man. "Perhaps, mad'moiselle already +knows Bertrand Fauchet, the young captain who passed below?" + +Sheila shook her head. + +The little man rubbed his hands together in keen enjoyment. "Ah, there is +a man; but they are all men. The Boches have named them well. They fight +like demons, then they rest and play like children until their turn comes +to fight again. And Fauchet--he is a devil of a devil, possessed of a +thousand lives. Mad'moiselle would adore him." + +Sheila's demure chin tilted mutinously, "But I don't like devils, even +blue ones." + +"Ah, you do not understand. C'est la guerre. We must lock away in our +hearts all the pity, all the tenderness, as we hide our jewels and our +treasures and mask our cathedrals. If we did not they would all be +destroyed and we would go quite mad." He smiled whimsically at Sheila, as +one smiles at a child who fails to comprehend. "Wait--wait till +mad'moiselle sees France. Then--" He finished with a shrug and left them. + +They were in midstream when they saw the little man again. He came +hurrying toward them with both hands outstretched to Peter. "It is Mr. +Brooks. I did not know when I was speaking with you and mad'moiselle +before. They told me at the office of your paper that you would be sailing +to-day. May I present Jacques Marchand of the _Figaro_, a +fellow-journalist?" and he made a profound bow which included Sheila. + +Peter introduced the girl beside him and the little man looked at her with +whetted interest and a twinkle of suppressed humor. "You women of America, +you come like battalions of good angels to nurse our devils. Eh bien, +before the sun goes down you shall meet your first one. Au 'voir till +then." + +They were in the stern, watching the last of the sun in their wake as it +turned myriads of whirring wings to iridescent gold, when the little man +found them again. This time he was not alone. Close upon his heels came +the captain of the Blue Devils; and again the black eyes met Sheila's when +they were still a man's length apart. + +"Mad'moiselle," said Jacques Marchand, "I have brought, as I +promised--Monsieur Satan--Mad'moiselle O'Leary. Look him well over; you +will see he has not the horns or cloven feet, nevertheless--mais, voila." + +The captain was blushing like a very bashful little boy; he was smiling as +naively as an infant. Sheila guessed at his age and placed it not far from +twenty. Who had ever conceived of a boy-Mephistopheles? It was absurd. A +genuine diabolical personage had no right to a pre-middle age; for him all +years prior to forty should not exist. And here was undeniably a boy, +whose very bashfulness and naivete bore witness that he had not entirely +grown up. So Sheila smiled back upon him with the frankness and abandon +one feels so safe in bestowing upon youth. + +"This paper-man, he likes to be what you call funny. It pays him well, and +he must keep, what you say, his feet in. But I do not like always his +little jokes. I will make a new introduce so. Bertrand Fauchet, capitaine +Chasseurs Alpins, very much at your service, ma'am'selle." The soldier +bowed with solemnity. It was evident he felt his dignity had been +trampled on and resented it. + +The little man of the _Figaro_ wagged a forefinger at him. "Ah, tata, +garcon. Remember, I am your godfather in the battalion. It is I that give +you the name. Three years ago in the Cafe des Alcazar I call you Monsieur +Satan, and it stick. You cannot rub it off; you cannot make France forget +it; and when you come back so fierce--so terrific from the fighting at +Troyes where you get the Croix de Guerre it is not for Capitaine Fauchet +the men shout--non. It is for Monsieur Satan they shout, for the devil of +a Blue Devil. Eh, mon ami?" And he laid a loving arm across the other's +shoulder. + +During the crossing the four met often; the journalist always kindly and +loquacious, Monsieur Satan always shy. Sometimes he joined Sheila alone +for an after-dinner promenade. It was always at that hour when the day was +fading into a luminous twilight that told of stars to come, and they +tramped the decks in a strange, companionable silence. It was plain that +Monsieur Satan did not wish to talk, and Sheila gave him freely the +silence he craved. Once he stopped and looked over the railing, hard at +the sea horizon. + +"Did you ever think, ma'am'selle," he said, softly, "how the great ocean +shows nothing of the war? The underneath may be choked with sunken ships, +the murdered ships, but the ocean has no scars. It is not like our +sorrowful France--all scars. So--I find it good to look at this and +forget. Perhaps, some day, a peace like this will come to the heart of +Bertrand Fauchet. Qui savez?" + +And another time, when he was wishing her good night, he added: "Dormez +bien--sans songes, ma'am'selle. The dreams, they are bad." + +But generally he left her with just a pressure of the hand and an "_Au +'voir_." And yet there was always in his voice a suppressed gratitude as +for a gift. + +When Peter was alone with him he tried to draw him out and got nothing for +his pains. The story he had scented on their day of embarkation had +undoubtedly left no trail. When he aired his disappointment good-naturedly +to Sheila she only laughed at him. + +"If you want a story go to some of the other devils; we'll never know more +of Monsieur Satan till Fate turns interlocutor." + +"Well, he's certainly the most slumbering devil I ever saw. If that's the +worst French soil can propagate, it's hard to believe the Germans they +tackle get much of an inferno." + +In spite of his skepticism, however, Peter had an unexpected glimpse into +that inferno the day before they landed. For thirty-six hours they had +been running through the danger zone with life-boats loose on their +davits, life-belts ready for adjustment, and nerves tense. Then the +tension had suddenly relaxed, everybody talked with everybody else, +displaying a lack of restraint that bordered on intimacy. Peter and Sheila +were strolling an almost deserted deck toward a group amidships. As they +neared it they saw it was dominated by two principal figures--one a +professional philanthropist with more sentiment than judgment, and the +other Monsieur Satan. The philanthropist was talking in what Peter termed +an "open-throttle voice." + +"But you don't mean you would ever harm a defenseless prisoner, Captain +Fauchet? Of course you would never allow your men to kill a fallen enemy +or one supplicating mercy." + +"Supplicating mercy--bah!" The mouth that could smile so boyishly had a +diabolical twist, the eyes blazed like hell-fires, as Peter said +afterward. "There is only the one Boche that is safe, madame--the dead +Boche. When we find them wriggling I teach my men to make them +safe--quickly!" The lips smiled sardonically. Monsieur Satan was a boy no +longer; in some inexplicable fashion he had come into full possession of +that Mephistophelian middle-age. + +But the lady philanthropist had neither the eyes to see nor the +intelligence to understand. Instead she clumsily parried with invisible +forces. "Of course you don't mean that, Captain Fauchet. You are just +making believe you are a wicked man. I believe you are trying to stuff me, +as our American slang puts it. Now if a wounded German came running toward +you crying Kamerad--" + +"Sacrebleu! Oui, madame, once I listen to that Kamerad. But now--jamais! +When they call it with their lying tongues I shout them back 'Kamerad to +hell!' and I zigeuille." The right hand made a swift, subtle twist with a +deep thrust. It took little imagination to guess what it was supposed to +be holding. For a second Monsieur Satan's eyes still continued to blaze at +the woman before him; then he tossed back his head, plunged through the +crowd, and was gone. + +"A devil of a Blue Devil," quoted Peter under his breath. "Our friend, +Monsieur Marchand, was not indulging in hyperbole after all." + +Sheila watched him go and said nothing. + +That twilight, when Monsieur Satan joined her, he looked as harmless as +ever, only a trifle more bashful. "Perhaps ma'am'selle will care no longer +to promenade with the wicked man. N'est ce pas?" + +"A brave man," corrected Sheila, and she looked straight into the black +eyes. "A brave man who has given himself body and soul to France." + +"Body and soul. Oui, ma'am'selle. But listen--there is something--" His +face changed in a breath, the eyes were blazing again, the mouth had +turned as sinister as his _nom de guerre_ signified. But something in +Sheila's eyes checked him. He put out a hand unconsciously and laid it on +her as though to steady himself. "Non, ma'am'selle. One need not tell +everything. You will see enough--enough." + +When they landed, his good-bys to her were curiously brief. He held her +hand a second as if he would have said a great deal; then with a quick +"_Au 'voir_" he flung it from him and was down the gangway. But with Peter +it was different. He found him alone and vouchsafed him for the first time +what might have been called conversation. + +"I do not know until yesterday that you were betrothed to Ma'am'selle +O'Leary. That is so?" + +Peter nodded. + +"You have been generous, monsieur. I wish to thank you." + +Peter held out his hand. "Oh, that's all right. American men aren't given +to being jealous, as a rule. Besides, Miss O'Leary is the sort one has no +right to be selfish with. I guess you understand?" + +"Oui, monsieur. She belongs a little to every one, man or child, who needs +the sympathy, the kind word, the loving heart. Moi, I comprehend. Some +time, perhaps, I render back the service. Then you can trust me; the honor +of Bertrand Fauchet can be trusted with women. Adieu, monsieur." + +By dawn the next day the passengers of the liner were scattering to the +far corners of the fighting-front. Jacques Marchand had gone, _via_ the +office of the _Figaro_, to Flanders. Monsieur Satan had been despatched to +relieve another captain of the Chasseurs Alpins with French outposts along +the Oise. Peter had received his war permits to join the A. E. F. in +action and Sheila had received her appointment to an evacuation hospital +near the front. Her parting with Peter was over before either of them had +time to realize it. Her train left the Gare du Nord before his. They had +very little to say, these two who had claimed each other out of all the +world and now were putting aside their personal happiness that they might +give their service where it was so really needed. There were no +whimperings of heart, no conscious self-righteousness; only a great +gladness that hard work lay before them and that they understood each +other. + +"Good-by, man o' mine. Whatever happens, remember I am yours for always, +and death doesn't count," and Sheila laid her lips to Peter's in final +pledge. + +"I know," said Peter. "That's what makes all this so absurdly easy. And, +sweetheart, you are to remember this, never put any thought of me before +what you feel you have got to do. Don't bungle your instincts. I'd swear +by them next to God's own." + +And so they went their separate ways. + +There was no apprenticeship for Sheila in the hospital whither she was +sent. The chief of the surgical staff gave a cursory glance over the +letter she had brought from the San, signed by the three leading surgeons +in that state; then he looked hard at her. + +"Hm ... m! And strong into the bargain. You're a godsend, Miss O'Leary." + +Before the day had gone she was in charge of one of the operating-rooms; +by midnight they had fifty-three major operations. And the days that +followed were much the same; they passed more like dreams than realities. +There were a few sane, clear moments when Sheila realized that the sky was +very blue or leaden gray; that the sun shone or did not shine, that the +wards were cheery places and that all about her were faces consecrated to +unselfish work or to patient suffering. These were the times when she +could stop for a chat with the boys or write letters home for them. But +for the most part she was being hurled through a maelstrom of operations +and dressings with just enough time between to snatch her share of food +and sleep. Her enthusiasm was unbounded for the marvelous efficiency of it +all. She could never have believed that so many delicate operations could +have been done in so few hours, that wounds could heal with such rapidity, +that nerves could rebound and hearts come sturdily through to go about +their business of keeping their owners alive. And every boy brought to her +room was a fighting chance; but the fight was up to her and the surgeons, +and they fought as archangels might to restore a new heaven on a befouled +earth. Life had always seemed full and worth while to her. Now it seemed a +super-life, shorn of everything petty and futile. + +"War may be hell; very likely it is for those who make it; but for us who +do the patching afterward it's like the Day of Creation. I feel as if I'd +put new souls into mended bodies." And the gruff, overtired chief who +heard her smiled and mumbled to himself, "Those of us who survive will all +have new souls; old ones have atrophied and dropped off." + +Fall was slow in coming. Instead of settling down to trench hibernating as +had been the custom for three years, the Entente kept to its periodic +attacks, pushing the enemy back farther and still a little farther, so +that trenches were no longer the permanent abiding-places they had been in +the past. Just as every one was prophesying the numbing of hostilities +until spring, the rumor spread of Foch's final drive. On the heels of the +rumor came the drive itself. Hospitals were taxed to their utmost; +surgeons and nurses worked for days with a maximum of four hours' sleep a +night. In Sheila's hospital Anzacs, Territorials, poilus, Americans, +Tommies, and Zouaves poured in indiscriminately. Mattresses covered every +square inch on the floor and canvas was stretched in the yard over many +more. The number of operating-tables gave out at the beginning and they +used stretchers, boards--anything that could hold a wounded man. + +"It's our last pull," said the doctors. "If we can keep going three--four +more days, we'll have as many months to get back some of our wind." + +"Of course we'll keep going," said the nurses. And they slept in their +clothes for those days and did dressings in their sleep. + +When it was over and they had settled down to what was near-routine again +they began to sort out the minor cases and pass on the convalescents. +Sheila, who had slept on the threshold of her room for weeks, was dragged +forth by the chief to make the rounds with him and dispose of the +negligible cases. It was in the last ward that she came upon Monsieur +Satan. + +From across the room she was conscious of the change in him. He was not +much hurt--an exploding shell had damaged one foot and his heart had been +strained. It was a mental change that caught Sheila's attention. The eyes +had grown abnormally alert and cunning; there was nothing boyish or naive +left to the mouth; it was sinister, vengeful, unrelenting. He was in a +wheel-chair between two husky giants of Australians who kept wary eyes +upon him. As the surgeon and the nurse reached them, Monsieur Satan +tossed his head back with a sudden recognition, and Sheila held out a +friendly hand. + +"I am glad to see you again, Captain Fauchet; not much of a scratch, I +hope." + +The eyes held their cunning, the sinister droop to the lips intensified as +they curved mockingly to greet her: "Bon! It is Ma'am'selle O'Leary. The +scratch it is nothing. Bertrand Fauchet has still the two good hands to +kill with." He curled them as if over the hilts of invisible weapons, and +with lightning thrusts attacked the air about him. "Une, deux, trois, +quatre, cinq--Ha-ha!" and the appalling pantomime ended with a diabolical +laugh. + +In some inexplicable fashion he had come into full possession of his _nom +de guerre_. Sheila had thought her nerves steel, her control unshakable; +but she was shuddering when they reached the corridor. There she broke +through the orthodox repression of her calling and quizzed the chief. + +"What's happened? He wasn't like that when I knew him. If it was +witch-times we'd say he'd been caught by the evil eye." + +"Same thing, brought up to date. It's shell shock. Memory all right, +nerves and brain speeded up like a maniac; he's come back obsessed with +the idea he must kill. First night he was brought in, before we knew what +the matter was, he knifed the two Germans in his ward. Since then we've +kept him safe between these two Australians, but he has their nerves +almost shattered." The chief smiled grimly. + +To Sheila it seemed diabolically logical. What was more natural in this +business of war than that when one's reason went over the top it should +grip the mad desire to kill? But the horror of it! She turned back to the +day's work white and sick at heart. For twenty-four hours she accepted it +as inevitable. At the end of that time her memory was harkening back to +the bashful boy of the French liner, the boy who could smile like a lost +cherub, who looked at her with the fineness of soul that made her +companionship a willing gift. Had that fine, simple part of him been blown +to eternity and could eternity alone bring it back? And what of the years +before him, the years such a physique was bound to claim? Did it mean a +mad-cell with a keeper? + +At the end of a third day the old Leerie of the San was walking through +the wards of the hospital with her lamp trimmed and burning, casting such +a radiance on that eager face that the men turned in their cots to catch +the last look of her as she passed; and after she had gone blinked across +at one another as if to say: "Did you see it? Did you feel it? And what +was it, anyway?" + +She was looking for some one; and she found him with a leg shot off, +playing a mouth-organ in the farthest corner of one ward. He was a +Chasseur Alpin; he had been wounded in the same charge as Monsieur Satan. +Sheila was searching for cause and effect and she prayed this man might +help her find them. As she sat down on the edge of the cot she thanked her +particular star for a speaking knowledge of French. "Bon jour, mon ami. I +have come for your help. C'est pour Capitaine Fauchet." + +The mouth-organ dropped to the floor. The eyes that had been merely +pleasantly retrospective gathered gloom. "Mais, que voulez-vous? All the +others say it is hopeless. Tell me, ma'am'selle, what can I do?" + +"I don't know--I hardly know what any of us can do. But we must try +something. We know so little about shell shock, so often the impossible +happens. Tell me, were you with him?" + +The soldier hitched himself forward and leaned over on one elbow. +"Toujours, ma'am'selle, always I am with him. Listen. I can tell you. I +was born in the little town of Tourteron where Bertrand Fauchet was +born--and where Nanette came to live with her brother Paul and their +uncle, the good abbe. I was not of their class; but we all played together +as children and even then Bertrand loved Nanette. The year war came they +were betrothed. I am not tiring ma'am'selle?" + +"No. Go on." + +"We both enlisted in the Chasseurs Alpins. They made Bertrand a +lieutenant, then a captain--he was a man to lead. And how kind, how good +to his men! That was before he had won his nom de guerre--before they +called him Monsieur Satan. If there was a danger he would see it first and +race for it, to get ahead of his men. He would give them no orders that he +would not fill with them; and always so pitying for the prisoners. 'Treat +them kindly, mes garcons,' he would cry; and what mercy he would show! Mon +Dieu! I have seen him, when his mouth was cracking with the thirst, pour +the last drop from his canteen down the throat of a dying Boche, or share +the last bread in his baluchon with a wounded prisoner. And the many times +he has crept into No Man's Land to bring in a blesse we could hear moaning +in the dark; and when it turned out a Boche, as so often it did, he would +carry him with the same tenderness. That was Bertrand Fauchet when war +began. Once I ask him, 'Why are you so careful with the Boches?' and he +smiled that little-boy smile of his and say: 'Why not? We are still +gentlemen if we are at war. And listen, Francois--some day our little +Tourteron may fall into Boche hands. I would have them know many +kindnesses from us before that happens.' + +"Eh bien, Tourteron did fall into their hands, ma'am'selle, and there it +has been until a fortnight ago. The German ranks swept it like a sea and +made it their own, as they made the houses, the cattle, the orchards, the +maids, quite their own. You comprehend? After that Bertrand fight like +the devil and pray like the saint. Then one day a Boche stabs +Paul--Nanette's brother Paul--as he stoops to succor him. Fauchet sees; +and he hears the tales that come across the trenches to us. The abbe is +crucified to the chapel door because he gives sanctuary to the young +girls; Pere Fauchet is shot in the Square with other anciens for example. +After that Capitaine Fauchet gives us the order 'no mercy,' and we kill in +battle and out. Ma'am'selle shudders--mais, que voulez-vous? He is +Monsieur Satan now; but I still think he prays. + +"And now comes the big drive of the Supreme Command. Village after village +that has been Boche land for four years becomes French again. The people +go mad with joy; they come rushing out to meet our regiments like souls +turned out of hell by God Himself. But such souls, ma'am'selle! Be +thankful in your heart you shall never have the little places of America +thrown back to you by a retreating Boche army, never look into the faces +of the people who have been made to serve their desires. It is like when +the tide goes out on the coast and leaves behind it wreckage and slime. +Only here it was human wreckage. + +"At last the night came when we lay outside Tourteron. Bertrand called for +me and we bivouacked together. We were to attack some time before dawn, +after the moon had set. We could not trust our tongues--at such times +things are better left unsaid; so we lay and smoked and prayed against +what we feared. Only once Bertrand spoke--'Francois, to-morrow will see me +always a devil or a saint, le bon Dieu knows which.' + +"The moon shone bright till after midnight. We lay under cover of thin +weeds, and beyond lay the meadow and stream and then the town. About +twelve we heard the crisp bark of a sniper--two, three shots; then +everything was still as death again. We were watching the shadows play +across the meadow and timing the minutes before the moon would sink, when +out of one of those shadows she came--straight across the meadow and the +moonlight. It was Nanette, ma'am'selle. We knew it on the instant. She had +a way of carrying the head and a step one could not forget. It was she the +sniper had been after. One side of her face was crimson, the other side +white and beautiful. But she did not seem to know, and the first look I +had told me she had gone quite mad. + +"I could feel Bertrand Fauchet stiffen by my side; I could feel him reach +out for my Rosalie and grip it fast. Then he began a low or crooning call. +He dared not call out loud--he dared not move to give our troops away! It +was to be a surprise attack. So all he could do was to wait and call +softly as to a little child, 'Nanette cherie, allons, allons!' + +"There had been a skirmish in the meadow two days before; we had given way +and the handful of dead we had left behind were still unburied. I think +Nanette had heard that the Chasseurs Alpins had come and she had stolen +out to find her lover. She came slowly, so slowly, and frail as a shadow +herself. As she passed each corpse she knelt beside it and sang the +foolish little berceuse that Poitou mothers sing to their babies. We could +hear the humming far away, and as she came nearer we could hear the words. +Ma'am'selle knows them, perhaps? + + "'Ah! Ah! papillon, marie-toi-- + Helas, mon maitre, je n'ai pas de quoi, + La dans ma bergeri-e + J'ai cent moutons; ca s'ra pour faire les noces de papillon.'" + + +[Illustration: "The first look I had told me she had gone quite mad"] + + +The soldier crooned the song through to himself as if under the spell of +the story he was telling. Then he went on. "She sang it through each time, +patting the blue coats, pushing back the caps of those who still wore +them, looking hard into each dead face. But she would always turn away +with the little shake of the head, so triste, ma'am'selle. And all the +time the man beside me calling out his heart in a whisper--'Nanette-- +Nanette--allons, cherie!' + +"She was not twenty yards away, the arms of Bertrand Fauchet were reaching +out to take her, when, pouf! the sniper barked again and Nanette went down +like a pale cornflower before the reaper. And all the time we laid there, +waiting for the moon to set. When we charge we charge like devils. We +swept Tourteron clean of the Boches; _and we take no prisoners!_ For that +night every man remember the one thing, they love their captain and they +see what he has seen. But before the day is gone we are sane men again, +all but our captain. The shell that takes my leg takes what pity, what +softness he has left, and leaves him with just the frenzy to kill. And it +is not for me to wonder--moi--for I know all." + +The story haunted Sheila for days; always when she closed her eyes she +could see the girl Nanette coming across the meadow in the moonlight. She +never failed to open them before she saw too far. The plaintive melody of +the berceuse rang in her ears on duty and off, till at last she could +stand it no longer. It was the old dominant Leerie who hunted up the +chief. + +"Colonel Sparks, I want you to put me on Captain Fauchet's case. The work +is lighter now; you can do with one less operating-room. I know it's bad +form to interfere, but I want my chance on that case." + +The chief looked his surprise. "I've heard of your fondness for breaking +rules--wondered when you were going to begin. I don't mind giving you up, +but that case is hopeless. I'm sure of it. Listen--and this isn't for +publication--Fauchet got out of his ward again, hid in the corridors until +the nurse was gone, and killed another German last night. That man is +incurably insane and we can't keep him here any longer." + +"Please!" There was a look about Leerie that could not be denied, a +compelling prayer for the right to save another human being. "You could +keep him a little longer; I'll promise there'll be no more dead Germans. +Give me my chance." + +"What's your idea?" + +The girl raised a deprecating hand. "Something so crazy that you'd laugh +at it. Let me keep it to myself--and give me Captain Fauchet." + +In the end Leerie had her wish. The little room at the end of a ward, used +heretofore for supplies, was turned into a private room, and Monsieur +Satan was moved in, with Sheila O'Leary as guardian. It was very evident +that the patient approved. Once the door was closed behind them, he +beckoned the nurse to him with malignant joy. + +"They are all Germans out there--I've just discovered it. Sooner or later +they will all have to be destroyed. You are an American. I can swear to +that, for I saw you on a liner coming from America and your French is so +bad, pardonnez-moi, it could not be anything but American. That is why I +trust you. You are with me against the Boches, n'est-ce pas?" + +Sheila solemnly agreed. + +"Eh bien, listen. The world is slowly turning Boche. You pour a little +Pinard into water and what do you get? Crimson! Well, you scatter a few +Boches over the earth and what have you? A German world colored Prussian +blue. Come closer, ma'am'selle." He put out nervous hands and drew her +down so he could whisper his words. "And the cure, ma'am'selle, the cure? +Ah, moi, Monsieur Satan, knows it." + +They spent the rest of the day in discussing the killing qualities of +shells, grenades, bombs; the stabbing qualities of bayonets, daggers, +swords; the exploding properties of dynamite, nitroglycerin, TNT, and +others. As they talked Monsieur Satan sucked in his breath exultantly and +hissed between his teeth, "_Zigouille, toujours zigouille!_" while his +hand stabbed and twisted into the air. + +Another day and he had taken Sheila entirely into his confidence. "I have +my mind made. You shall hear the cure, ma'am'selle, for you and I will be +partners. A Boche world can be cured but the one way--destroyed, +completely destroyed," and he laughed uproariously. Then his eyes +narrowed; he was all cunning and intensity, a beast of prey crouched for +the spring. "Ah, but we must whisper; there are spies everywhere. The men +in the wards are all spies pretending they are French wounded; and the +doctors are spies. Oh, the Boches are damnably clever, but we will be more +damnable--we will outwit them. We will blow them into a million atoms. +They will make good fertilizer for French vineyards in a hundred years. Eh +bien?" + +So Sheila became partner in evolving the most colossal crime the world had +ever known. Everything played into her hands and gave credence to her +deceptions. The great cases that came by night packed with dressings were +to Monsieur Satan air-bombs with propellers. They were to be set loose on +the day appointed in such millions that the air would be charged with +them, the sun blotted out; and they would drop in exploding masses over +the earth, exterminating humanity. + +"They shall be like the hordes of locusts that nearly destroyed +Egypt--only these shall destroy. And how every one shall run in terror! +You will see, ma'am'selle. It will be a good sight." And Monsieur Satan +rubbed his hands in keen anticipation. + +The tanks of oxygen placed on motor-trucks, the gasoline-tanks, were +nothing else than a deadly gas. The partners had concocted it out of the +strangest compounds, unshed-tears, heart-agony, fear-in-the-night, +snipers' barks, and moonshine. Monsieur Satan chuckled over the formula +and said he would swear not a living soul could withstand a single whiff +of it. It was agreed that the makers of the gas--mythological beings +Sheila had created--should be killed at once so that their secret should +never be discovered; and Sheila herself was despatched to compass the +deed. Before she returned the bell in the church near by was tolling for +their parting souls; and Monsieur Satan chuckled as he cast admiring +glances at this prompt executioner. + +"You are a good pupil, ma'am'selle; you learn quickly. Now the maps." And +they fell to diagraming where the piping for this deadly gas should be +laid. + +Not an inch of the old world was to be left peopled; from east to west and +north to south everything was to be destroyed. No, not everything. Even as +Monsieur Satan decreed it he hesitated. "There are the children, I +think--yes, I think they shall live. Their hearts are pure; the Boches +cannot contaminate them. They shall live after us with no memory of evil, +so they can build again the beautiful world." He stopped and looked across +at the nurse with a haunting, wistful stare. "Tell me, ma'am'selle, was +the world ever beautiful?" + +"Very beautiful, capitaine." + +He passed an uncertain hand over his eyes. "I seem to remember that it +was; but now I see it always running with red blood boiling from hell." + +After that the children were always in his mind; as he planned the +destruction of the rest of the world he planned their re-creation. +Thereupon Sheila saw to it that the war orphans from the _creche_ came to +play in the hospital gardens--under the window of the little room. Soon it +became a custom for Monsieur Satan to look for them, to ask their names, +and wave gaily to them. And they waved back. And the chief of the surgical +staff began to marvel that Monsieur Satan should give no more trouble. + +Among them was a little girl, a wan, ethereal little creature who sat +apart from the other children and watched their play with far-away, +haunting eyes, as if she wondered what in the world they were doing. +Sheila had found toys for her--a ball, a doll, a jumping-jack--and tried +to coax her to play. But she only clung to them for their rare value as +possessions; as a means to enjoyment they were quite meaningless. From one +of the older children Sheila got her story. Her father had been killed, +her mother was with the Boches; there was no one else. With an aching +heart the nurse wondered how many thousand Madelines France held. + +One day she brought the child in to Monsieur Satan and repeated her story. +He listened wisely, patting her on the head, and then whispered to Sheila: +"Ah, what did I say! These Boches--they get everything--the mothers, the +sweethearts." Then to Madeline: "Listen, ma pauvre; you shall have the +sadness no longer. Monsieur Satan will promise you happiness, ah, such +happiness in the new beautiful world he is preparing for you. Now go. But +'sh ... sh! You must say nothing." + +From this moment Sheila became senior partner. It was she who suggested +all the extraordinary horrors Monsieur Satan had overlooked. It was she +who speeded up time and plans. "I have the hospitals and streets all mined +in case the flying bombs should not come thick enough; and I have the +wells poisoned. Isn't that a clever idea?" + +The man looked disturbed. "That's as clever as the Boches. But the +children--where will they drink? You must take care of the children." + +Then Sheila played her trump card and said the thing she had been waiting +so long to say. Like Monsieur Satan she hissed the words between her +teeth, while her face took on all the diabolical cunning it could muster. +"The children--bah! What do they matter, after all? I have decided--the +children shall be destroyed." + +Monsieur Satan sprang from his chair. He pinioned her arms behind her, +forcing her back so he could look deep into her eyes with all the hate +and mercilessness his soul harbored. "Touch Madeline--the children, never! +Let so much as one little hair of their heads be harmed and I--Monsieur +Satan--will kill you!" + +She left him with a non-committal shrug, left him panting and swearing +softly under his breath. + +From that moment he watched Sheila suspiciously and followed the children +with jealous eyes. For Madeline he called constantly; and she sat on his +knee by the hour while he danced the jumping-jack outrageously and taught +her to sing to the doll a certain foolish berceuse that Poitou mothers +sing to their babies. + +Sheila had planned to stage their day of destruction with the craft of a +master manager. She had had to take certain officials into her confidence +and get the chief to sign such orders as had never been issued in a +hospital before. But in the end Fate staged it, and did it infinitely +better than the nurse had even conceived it. The hour of doom struck a +full half-day too soon--the children were playing in the gardens, under +Monsieur Satan's window instead of being in the cellar of the _creche_ as +he had decreed; and Sheila was helping another head nurse do dressings in +the ward outside. + +There were only a few minutes after the siren blew before the first of the +great Fokkers appeared over the city. Monsieur Satan's mind went strangely +blank; the children stopped their play and gaped stupidly into the sky; +Sheila did nothing but listen. Then the bombs began to rain down on the +city. The noise was terrific. The children ran aimlessly about, shrieking +pitifully. It was this that set Monsieur Satan's mind to working again. He +broke out of the little room like the madman he was. He might have been +Lucifer himself as he stumbled along on his bandaged foot, his hair erect, +his eyes blazing a thousand inextinguishable fires. In the corridor he +came upon Sheila, with other nurses and doctors, hurrying to gather in the +out-of-door patients. As he overtook them a bomb struck the hospital. + +"Sacrebleu!" he shouted. "You bungler! you fool of a destroyer! It was not +the hour--and the children--First I go to save them. Afterward I come to +kill you, ma'am'selle." + +He was out before them all, through the entrance and down the steps, when +another bomb struck. The doorway and the pillars were crushed to gravel +and Monsieur Satan was hurled headlong across the gardens. In an instant +he was up, stumbling frantically toward the children, his arms +outstretched in appealing vindication to those small, quivering faces +turned to him in their hour of annihilation. "Mes enfants, have no fear. I +come--I come." + +A third bomb fell. The children were tumbled in a heap like a pile of +jackstraws. Monsieur Satan had time enough to see them go down before a +fourth followed with the quick precision of an automatic. Yes, he saw; and +in that horror-smiting moment believed it all a part of his great scheme +of destruction; then the universe went to pieces about him and something +crumbled inside his brain. He stood transfixed to the earth, staring +helplessly in front of him, as immovable as a graven image. + +It is one of the anomalies of war that the things that apparently destroy +sometimes re-create. The gigantic impact of exploding masses may destroy a +man's hearing, his sight, his memory, or his mercy, and leave him thus +maimed for all time. But it happens, sometimes, that the first shock is +followed by another which restores with the suddenness of a miracle and +makes the man whole again. That delicate bit of human mechanism which has +been battered out of place is battered in, by the merest chance. + +So it was with Monsieur Satan; and when Sheila and the chief found him he +was rubbing his eyes as children will who wake and find themselves in +strange places. He saw only the chief at first and tried to pull himself +together. + +"Ah, monsieur, I think some things have happened--but I cannot as yet make +the full report. I am Bertrand Fauchet, Chasseur Alpin," and he tried to +click his bandaged heel against his shoe. Then he looked beyond and saw +Sheila. It was as if he was seeing her for the first time since they had +separated at the French quay. "Bon Dieu! It is Ma'am'selle O'Leary." He +held out a shaking hand. "We meet in the thick of war--is it not so?" + +His eyes left Sheila and traveled apprehensively to the children. They +were wriggling themselves free of one another; frightened and bruised, +but not hurt, barring one. The smallest of them all lay on the outskirts +of the heap, quite motionless. + +"If you will permit," Monsieur Satan stumbled on and gently picked up +Madeline. He looked all compassion and bewilderment. "I do not altogether +understand, ma'am'selle. But this little girl, I should like to carry her +to some hospital and see that all is well with her. I seem to remember +that she belongs to me." He smiled apologetically at the two watching him, +then stumbled ahead with his burden. + +At the base hospital they gave Sheila O'Leary full credit for the curing +of Bertrand Fauchet, which, of course, she flatly denied. She laid it +entirely to the interference of Fate and a child. But the important thing +is that Bertrand Fauchet left the hospital a sound man--and that Madeline +went with him, each holding fast to the hand of the other. + +"She is mine now," he said, as he took leave of Sheila. "Le bon Dieu saw +fit to send me in the place of that other papa. Eh, p'tite?" He stroked +the hair back from the little face that looked worshipfully up at him. +"It is for us who remember to make these little ones forget. N'est-ce pas, +ma'am'selle? And we are going back to the world together, to find +somewhere the happiness and the great love for Madeline. Adieu." + + + + +Chapter VII + +THE LAD WHO OUTSANG THE STARS + + +In the American Military Hospital No. 10 one could always count on Ward +7-A beginning the day with a genuine fanfare of good spirits--that is to +say, ever since that ward had acquired a distinction and personality of +its own. On this particular morning the doors of the wards were open, for +orderlies were scrubbing floors, and Sheila O'Leary in the operating-room +above could catch the words of the third chorus that had rung through the +hospital since the ban of silence had been raised. + + "Gra-ma-cree ma-cruiskeen, Slainte-geal ma-vour-neen, + Gra-ma-cree a-coolin bawn, bawn, bawn, + Oh!" + +As usual, Larry's crescendo boomed in the lead. How those lads could sing! + +In the regular order of things it was time for dressings; but the regular +order of things was so often broken at No. 10 that it had nearly become a +myth. The operating staff had been steadily at it since eleven the night +before. If nothing more came in, they might be through by eleven now and +the dressings come only two hours late. That would be rare good luck. +Under the spell of the singing the tired backs of surgeons and nurses +straightened unconsciously; cramped muscles seemed to lose some of their +kinks; everybody smiled without knowing it--down to the last of the boys +who were waiting their turn in the corridor outside. The boys had not been +in the hospital long enough to know anything about Ward 7-A, but the +challenge to courage and good spirits in that chorus of voices was too +dominant to be denied, even among the sorest wounded of them. One after +another rallied to it like veterans. + +"Gra-ma-cree ma-cruiskeen bawn," boomed Larry's voice to the finish. + +The chief of the Surgical Staff looked at Sheila as she handed him the +sutures he was reaching for. "They're the best we've had yet, eh? Not one +with half a fighting chance, and just listen to the ones who are pulling +through." + +"They're Irish." There was a tinge of pride in the nurse's voice. + +The chief smiled. "It's like flipping a coin to find out whether you're +more Irish or American. Sometimes it's heads, sometimes it's tails. Which +is it, honestly?" + +"Honestly, both!" Sheila laughed softly. Then the door opened to admit the +last of the stretchers, and she sobered for an instant until she saw the +faces of the boys. She knew why they were smiling, and her eyes shone in +the old luminous, Leerie fashion as she greeted them, each as if he had +been an old friend. + +"There's a welcome for you. Those lads you hear have gone through what you +are going through, only a lot worse. Listen, and think of that as you go +under. They'll be singing again in a moment." And as she slipped the ether +cone over the face of the first, up from Ward 7-A in rollicking cadences +came another chorus: + + "Wi' me bundle on me shoulder, sure, there's not a man that's bolder-- + I am leavin' dear old Ireland without warnin'. + For I've lately took the notion for to cross the briny ocean, + An' I'm off for Philadelphia in the mornin'." + +The smile on the face of the first boy spread to a grin under its covering +of gauze. "I'm off for Philadelphia, too," he mumbled, thickly, and the +eyes that looked into Sheila's for a few last nebulous seconds showed all +the comfortable security of a child's. + +They were hard at it for another hour, and while Sheila O'Leary's hands +flew from sterilizer to ether cone, from handing instruments and holding +forceps to tying sutures and packing wounds, her mind was busy with +something that lay far beyond. To this girl, who had come across to do her +bit, life had become a jumble of paradoxes. She had come to give, out of +the bounty of her skill and her womanhood; instead she had received far +more abundantly from the largess of universal brotherhood and sacrifice. +She had come to minister, and she had been ministered unto by every piece +of human wreckage swept across the door-sill of the hospital. She had +thought to dispense life, and to her ever-increasing wonder she had been +given a life so boundless that it reached beyond all previous dreams of +space or time. She was learning what thousands had been learning since the +war began, those who had thrown their fortunes into its crucible, and +that is that if anything comes out at all, it comes out in the form of +spirit and not of flesh. + +Back in the old days at the sanitarium she had felt herself bound only to +the problems and emergencies of war. It had never occurred to her then +that in an incredibly short time she would be bothering about matters of +adjustment afterward. With peace already on the horizon, she was troubled +a hundredfold more than she had been when indefinite war was the promise +for the future. From the beginning she had marveled at the buoyancy and +optimism of the men who were focusing their lives within the limits of +each day. Many of them never thought in terms of more than twenty-four +hours; often it was less. They had learned the knack of intensive living. +World-old truths were flashed into their minds like spot-lights; friends +were made and lost in a few hours; eternity was visioned and compassed in +a minute. The last words Jerry Donoghue of Ward 7-A had said before he +went west came back to Sheila with a curious persistence. + +"When all's said and done, miss, it's been a grand life--Brave lads for +comrades--a lass who kept faith to the end--a good fight an' somethin' +good to fight for--Near five years of it--wi' perdition grinnin' ye in the +face an' the Holy Mother walkin' at your back--Sure, I might ha' lived +fifty year in Letterkenny an' never tasted life half so +plentiful--or--so--sweet." + +That was the strange part of it; they had all found life "plentiful an' +sweet"--nurses, surgeons, soldiers alike. They might be homesick, worn out +with the business of fighting and patching up afterward, eternally aching +in body and heart with the long stretches of horror and work with little +sleep and less food, and yet not a handful out of every thousand of them +would have chosen to quit if they could. + +But when the quitting-time came, when war was over, what was going to +happen then? Sheila wondered it about the boys who lay unconscious on +their stretchers, packed in the room about her. She wondered it about the +boys conscious in their cots below. Most of all she wondered it about Ward +7-A. It was going to hurt so many to have to look beyond the immediate +day into a procession of numberless days stretching into years and years. +The sudden relaxing from big efforts to little ones, that would hurt, too, +like the uncramping of over-strained muscles. And the being thrown back on +oneself to think, to act, to feel for oneself again--what of that? It was +like dismembering a gigantic machine and scattering the infinitesimal +parts of it broadcast over the earth to function alone. Only many of the +parts would be imperfect, and all would have souls to reckon with. + +But of the puzzle of it one fact stood out grippingly vital to Sheila. No +soul must be thrown out of the melting-pot back into the old accustomed +order of life and be left to feel unfit or unnecessary. There must be a +big, compelling place for every man who came home. Of all the tragedies of +war, she could conceive no greater one than to have these men who had put +no limit to the price they were willing to pay to make the world safe for +democracy sent back useless, to mark time to eternity. + +But who was going to keep this from happening? How were the thousands of +mutiles to be made free of the burden of dependence and toleration? Who +was going to guard them against atrophy of spirit? The nurse gathered up +the last of the instruments and threw them in the sterilizer. As she took +off her apron and wiped the beads of sweat from her face, her chief eyed +her suspiciously. + +"Get your coffee before you touch those dressings in 7-A. Understand? When +did you have your clothes off last?" He growled like a good-natured but +spent old dog. + +The girl gave her uniform a disgusted look. "Pretty bad, isn't it? I put +it on four--no, five days ago, but I've had my shoes off twice." She laid +an impulsive hand on the chief's arm. "Promise about the coffee if you'll +promise to do the dressings with me instead of Captain Griggs. He calls +them the 'down-and-outers.' I can't quite stand for that." + +"Well, what would you call 'em?" + +"The invincibles," she declared. "Wouldn't you?" + +But for all her promise, Sheila O'Leary did not get past the door of 7-A +without putting in her head and calling out a "good morning." Whereupon +twelve Irish tongues, dripping almost as many brogues, flung it back at +her with a vengeance. + +There were thirteen of them, all told, the remnants of a company of Royal +Irish that had crossed the Scheldt with Haig. As Larry Shea had put it on +the day of their arrival, they "made as grand leavin's as one could expect +under the circumstances." The ambulances that had brought them, along with +the additional seven who had gone west, had pivoted wrong at one of the +crossroads, so that the American Military Hospital No. 10 had fallen heir +to them instead of the B. H. T. It is recorded that even the chief showed +consternation when he looked them over, and Larry, catching the look and +being the only man conscious at the time, snorted indignantly: + +"Well, sir, if ye think we're a mess, ye should have seen the Fritzies we +left behind. Furninst them we're an ordther of perfectly decent lads." And +Larry had crumpled up into a grinning unconsciousness. + +It was Larry who led the singing; it was Larry now who, with an eye on the +one silent figure in the ward and another on the nurse in the doorway, +threw a wheedling remark to hold her with them a moment "by way of +heartenment to Jamie." "Wait a bit, miss. Patsy MacLean was just askin' +were ye a good hand at layin' a ghost?" + +Before Sheila could answer, Harrigan, an Irish-American orderly, stepped +over the threshold and shook a fist at 7-A. + +"Aw, cut it out. The way this bunch works Miss O'Leary makes me sick. +Don't cher know she hasn't been off duty for twenty-four hours? Let her +go, can't cher?" + +Johnnie O'Neil, from the far end of the room, smiled the smile of a +cherub. "An' don't ye know, laddie, that it's always the saints in heaven +that has the worst sinners on their hands? 'Tis jealous ye are, not being +wicked enough to get a bit more of her attention yerself." + +Sheila smiled impartially at them both, and with a parting promise of +dressings to come she hurried off. Ward 7-A settled itself to wait for the +worst and the best that the day had to offer. The room was a very small +one, and the thirteen cots barely crowded into it, with space at the foot +for Jamie O'Hara's wheel-chair to go the length and turn. They had been +kept together by Sheila's urgent plea that they should be given a ward to +themselves instead of scattering them through the larger wards, and it is +doubtful if in all the war a more quietly merciful act had been executed. +Not one of the thirteen but would have scorned to show any sign of +dependence on the others, yet intuitively the girl had guessed what they +would be able to give one another in the matter of spiritual succor. The +way they continually hectored and teased, matched wits and good humor, as +they had matched strength and daring in the old fighting-days before the +hospital, was meat and drink to the souls struggling for dominance over +mutilated bodies. United, they were men; separated--Sheila had often +shuddered to think what pitiful, pain-tortured beings they might have +been. + +When she returned to the ward the chief was with her, and their combined +arrival brought forth a prolonged, fortissimoed wail shammed forth in good +Gaelic fashion. Larry's great hairy arm shot out, and a vindictive +forefinger was wagged in the direction of the third cot. + +"Ye'd best begin with Patsy MacLean this day. He hasn't been laid out +first in a fortnight." + +The others, taking the words from Larry's tongue, chorused, "Aye, begin +wi' Patsy, the devil take him!" + +"Why the devil? Wouldn't Fritzie do as well?" The chief smiled indulgently +upon them all. + +"'Tis a case for the devil, this time. Tell the colonel what you were +putting over us last night," Michael Kenney, lance-corporal, growled +through an undercurrent of chuckle. + +Patrick MacLean, the color-sergeant, grinned as he reached out a welcoming +hand to both surgeon and nurse. He was a prime favorite with them, as with +his own lads. When pain wrestled for the upper hand, when things went +wrong, moods turned black, or nights stretched interminably long and +unendurable, Patsy could always turn the trick and produce something so +absorbingly interesting or ridiculous that the pain and the long nights +were forgotten. How well Sheila remembered that first time they had +dressed his wounds! The muscles had stood out on his arms like whipcords; +sweat poured down his face. He fainted twice, each time coming round to +drawl out his story in that unforgetable Irish way: + +"We were dthrivin' them afore us like sheep, all so tame an' sociable I +was forgettin' where I was. Somehow the notion took me I was back on the +moorlan' drivin' the flocks for my father, when a Fritzie overhead drops a +bomb on our captain.... It spatters the mud in my eyes somethin' terrible, +an' when I rubs them clean again the machine-guns were cacklin' all round +us like a parcel o' hens layin' eggs; we'd stumbled on a nest of them. +Holy Pether, I was mad! I was for stickin' the colors in the muzzle o' one +o' their bloody guns, an' I sings out as I rush 'em, 'Erin go bragh!' Then +down I goes. Culmullen, there, comes staggerin' up. 'Take the colors,' +says I. 'I've got no legs to carry 'em on.' 'I can't,' says he; 'I've got +no arms to shoulder 'em.'... A bit aftherwards I sees Jamie--he's second +in command--come runnin' up wild, but his arms an' legs is still in pairs, +so I shouts afore things go black, 'The colors, Jamie, ye take the +colors.' 'Wish to God, Patsy, I could,' says he, 'but I can't see.'... +Faith, weren't we a healthy lot, miss? An' we the Royal Irish!" He had +grinned then as he was grinning now. + +Culmullen in the next cot, a schoolmaster from Ballygowan, raised his +head. "Miss O'Leary, Patsy's the worst liar in Ulster. Ye might keep that +in mind whenever he has anything to tell. If I had had the schooling of +ye, I'd have thrashed the thruth into ye, ye rascal! Will ye kindly lean +over and brush the hair out of my eyes, and if ye tickle my nose this +time, I'll have Larry thrash ye for me the instant he's up." + +The color-sergeant pulled himself over and gently brushed back the +straggling hair. "Such a purty lad!" he murmured, sarcastically. "What's +an arm or two so long's the Fritzies didn't ruin one o' them handsome +features--nor shorten the length o' your tongue." + +"What is it this time, Sergeant?" Sheila spoke coaxingly as she bent to +the dressings. + +"Well, ye know I've said from the beginnin' 'twas no ways natural havin' +them legs o' mine twistin' an' achin' same as if they were still hangin' +onto me. I leave it to both of yez. If they'd been anyways decent legs an' +considerate o' the kindness I've always shown them, wouldn't they have +quit pestherin' me when they took Dutch leave?" + +"Stop moralizin'," shouted Johnnie O'Neil, the piper from Antrim. "Get +down to the p'int o' your tale." + +"It hasn't any point: it's flat," growled the lance-corporal. + +Unembarrassed, Patsy MacLean went on: "I was a-thinkin' this all over +again last night, a-listenin' to the ambulances comin' in, when a breath +o' wind pushes the door open a bit, an' in walks, as natural as life, the +ghost o' them two legs. 'Tis the gospel truth I'm tellin' ye. They walked +a bit bowlegged, same as they always did, straight through the door an' +down the ward. An' the queer thing is they never stopped by Larry's cot or +Casey Ryan's--the heathen!--but came right on to me." + +"Faith, they wouldn't have had the nerve to stop. The leg Casey lost was +as straight as a hazel wand, same as mine." Larry snorted contemptuously. + +"The two of yez are jealous." Patsy lowered his voice to a mock whisper +and confided to the chief and Sheila, "They know they'll have to be buyin' +a good pair o' shoes an' throwin' the odd away, while I'll be sayin' +enough from the shoes I'll never have to be buyin' to keep mysel' in +cigars for the rest o' my life." + +"But Patsy's wondtherin' can ye lay the ghost, miss?" Timothy Brennan, who +had lost the "cream of his face," repeated the question Larry had asked a +half-hour before. The rest of the ward tittered expectantly. + +"Let me see--" The Irish blood in her steadied the nurse's hands, while +she drew her lips into quizzical solemnity and winked at Culmullen over +her shoulder. "I always thought it was restlessness that sent ghosts +walking. Maybe these have come back, looking for their boots." + +The titter broke into a roar of delight. "Thrue for ye!" shouted +Parley-voo Flynn, pounding the arm of Jamie's chair with his one fist. +"All ye've got to do, Patsy, is to be puttin' your boots beside your chair +onct more, an' them legs will scrooch comfortably into them an' never +haunt ye again. The lass is right, isn't she, Jamie?" + +Eleven pairs of eyes and an odd one shifted apprehensively from the lad +who was being dressed to the lad in the wheel-chair, and the eyes all +showed varying degrees of trouble, uncertainty, and sorrow. They had a way +of searching Jamie out in this fashion many times a day, while he sat very +still, with eyes bandaged and lips that never flinched but never broke to +a smile. + +Larry shook a hairy fist at Parley-voo and answered the question himself: + +"Of course she's right! Isn't she always? An' who but a heathen would be +doubtin' the manners of a ghost?" + +"Aye, but where will I be gettin' the boots?" Patsy made a sour grimace. +"Me own purty ones had Christian burial somewhere back in that tremendous +mud-puddle. Would any gentleman, now, still havin' two good legs, give me +the loan of his boots for one night? Size eleven, if I don't disremember." + +"That's Teig's number. Lend him yours, Teig, like a good lad, or we'll +never be rid o' them ghosts." Mat O'Shaughnessy, at the other end of the +line, fairly shook with the depth of his wail. + +Teig Magee chuckled. He had lost an inch or so of back and was waiting the +glad day when they could mend it with an inch or so of shin-bone; in the +mean time he was paralyzed. "Say, Docthor, would ye mind reachin' undther +my pillow an' fetchin' them out for me? The lads have a way of forgettin' +my hands are temporarily engaged. Thank ye. Ye can have them, Patsy, but +ye'll have to go bail your ghosts won't up an' thramp off wi' them +entirely." + +It ended by the schoolmaster giving security--a half-crown with a bullet +hole through it. Sheila was appointed custodian, and the boots were placed +beside the color-sergeant's cot "against the comin' night." + +As the chief and Sheila passed on from cot to cot, the spirits of Ward 7-A +never wavered. Johnnie, who had piped the lads into battle and out for +four years, and who daily rejoiced over the fact that Fritzie had shown +the good sense to take a foot instead of a hand, told them that he was in +rare luck now, for there would be time to make wee Johnnie at home the +grandest piper in all of Ireland--an honor he could never have promised +himself before. + +There was "Bertha" Milliken, named for the big gun he had put out of +commission and the gun crew he had captured. He had been given the V. C. +for that. His pet joke was telling how the Fritzies grudged him its +possession by shooting it away on the Scheldt along with a good bit that +was under it. The nurse and surgeon handled "Bertha" very carefully; there +was no knowing just what was going to happen to him. Casey Ryan had lost +the odd of 'most everything the Lord had started him with, as he put it. +An eye, an ear, a lung, and a leg were gone, and he was beating all the +others at getting well. Mat O'Shaughnessy had it in the "vital." He was +continuously boasting that it was the handiest place of all, and if it +didn't get him he'd be the only perfect specimen invalided home. + +"Parley-voo," the only one of them who essayed French, had wounds many but +inconspicuous. He was given to counting a hypothetical fortune that might +be his if the Empire would give him a shilling for every time he had been +hit. Joseph Daly and "Gospel" Smith, the one Methodist, carried head +wounds, while "Granny" Sullivan, the oldest, wisest, and most comforting +of the company, had one smashed hip and a hole through the other, "the +devil of a combination." Never had the atmosphere of 7-A been keener or +spicier. Jamie alone sat still and silent. + +Jamie was the last to be dressed, and because there was little to do the +chief slipped away and left him to Sheila. As the nurse passed from Mat's +cot to the wheel-chair, eleven pairs of eyes and an odd one followed her. +A hush fell suddenly on the ward. The lads never intended this should +happen, but somehow, at the same time everyday, the silence gripped them, +and they seemed powerless to stay it. It was "Granny" Sullivan who first +threw it off. + +"'Tis a grand day outside, Jamie. Maybe ye're feeling the sun, now, comin' +through the window?" + +The nurse had lifted the bandage from the eyes. There was nothing there +but empty sockets, almost healed. One could hear the quick intake of +breath from the watching twelve, while every face registered an agony it +had scorned to show for its own disablement. But for Jamie, "the singing +lad from Derry" as they lovingly called him, it was different. They could +face their own conditions with amazing jocularity, but they writhed daily +under the torment of Jamie's. They could brave it no better than could +he. For to put eternal darkness on the lad who loved the light, who would +sit spellbound before the play of colors in the east at dawn or the flash +of moonlight across troubled water, who could make a song out of the smile +of a child or the rhythm of flying birds in the sky, that was damnable. An +arch-fiend might have conceived it, but where was God to let it happen? A +crippled Jamie without an arm or a leg was endurable--that cried out for +no blasphemy--but a Jamie without eyes--God in heaven, how could it be! + +The face of the singing lad was the face of a dreamer, as exquisite as a +piece of marble that might have been fashioned by Praxiteles for a sun +god. Since the battle on the Scheldt it had become a white mask, shorn of +all dreams. Almost it might have been a death-mask for the soul of Jamie +O'Hara. It showed no response now when "Granny" spoke; only the lad's +hands fluttered a moment toward the window, then dropped heavily back into +his lap. + +"Aye, maybe I feel it." The voice was colorless and tired. "I can't be +remembering clear sunlight any more. The last days of the fighting, smoke +was too thick in the sky, or the rains fell." + +Eleven pairs of eyes and one odd one cast about for some inspiration. +"Sure, think o' somethin' pleasanter nor cannon smoke an' rain. Think +o'--" "Granny" floundered for a moment, then gave up in despair. + +"That's all I see when I look up. When I look down, it's worse--an +everlasting earth, covered with mud and dying men!" Jamie shivered. + +Larry struggled out of his torment. "I say, Jamie, don't ye mind the song +ye were makin' for us the day we fell back from Cambrai? 'Twas an Irish +one, full o' the sun an' the singin' birds of Donegal. Wi' the Fritzies +risin' like a murdtherous tide behind us, 'twas all that kept the heart in +us that day. Ye say it for Miss O'Leary. Sure, ye've never said a song for +her yet." + +Jamie shook his head. "I'm sorry, lad; I've lost it. I was making so many +songs those days--ye couldn't be expecting a body to carry them all about +in his head. Now could ye?" The lips tried bravely to smile, and failed +again. + +But Larry grinned triumphantly. "Sure 'Granny' has it wrote down. He +showed it to me once. Fetch it, 'Granny,' an' let Jamie be re--" He broke +off, aghast; the lads about him were staring in absolute horror. Only the +singing lad showed nothing. He might not have heard, or, hearing, the +words were meaningless. + +So Sheila took matters into her own hands. She covered the eyes with fresh +gauze, wrapped Jamie up, and bundled him out in his chair to Harrigan with +the remark that the day was too fine to miss and there was more of it +outside the hospital than in. She watched until she had seen Harrigan take +him to a sunny, wind-sheltered corner of the gardens, and then she came +back to 7-A. She was thinking of Peter Brooks, her man at the front, and +she was trying to fathom with all her heart what manner of healing she +would give had Peter come back to her as Jamie O'Hara had come. She closed +the door of the ward behind her and faced the twelve. + +"Lads, what are we going to do for Jamie?" + +Larry groaned out loud. It was the first luxury of expression he had +indulged in since Jamie had been wheeled out. "Aye, what are we goin' to +do? That's what every man of us has been askin' himself since--since he +knew." + +"We act like a crowd o' half-wits, a-thryin' to boost his spirits a bit, +an' all the time he grows whiter an' quieter." Patsy turned his head away; +his lips were twitching. + +"Aye, that's God's truth." "Bertha's" hoarse croak was heavy with despair. +"Ye can see for yourself, miss, it's noways nat'ral for Jamie--that's the +worst of it. It's been Jamie, just, that always put heart back in us when +things went blackest. Wasn't it him that made it easy goin' for them that +went west? Can one of us mind the time he wasn't ready with a song to +fetch us over the top, or through the mud--or straight to death, if them +was the orders? No matter how loud the guns screeched, we could always +hear Jamie above them." + +"We could hear him when we couldn't have heard another sound," Culmullen +mumbled. + +"Gospel" Smith raised a bandaged head and leveled piercing eyes at Sheila. +"You know what the Gospel says about the stars singing in the morning--all +together like? Well, Jamie was the lad who could outsing them. You know +how it feels at that gray, creepy hour o' dawn, when a man's heart jumps +to his throat and sticks there, and his hands shake like a girl's? Often's +the time we'd be waiting orders to attack just like that. The stars might +have shouted themselves clear o' the sky, for all the good they'd have +done us; but Jamie was different. He'd make us a couplet or a verse to +sing low under our breath, something you could put your teeth into. And +when the orders came our hearts were always back where the Lord had put +them." + +"Granny" Sullivan plucked nervously at his blanket. "An' now, when we want +to hearten him, we're hurtin' instead. Seems as if the devil took hold of +our tongues an' spilled the wrong words off." + +"Shall I tell you what I would try to do, if I were one of you Irish lads +who had fought with him?" Sheila's face was as drawn as any of the twelve. + +"In God's name tell us!" Johnnie, the piper, spoke as reverently as if he +were at mass. + +"You heard what he said just now about seeing nothing but mud and dying +men? Well, that's the trouble. He can't see any longer things he loves, +the things he has always carried in his heart. All the beautiful memories +have been lost, and all he has left are the horrors of those last days. +He's got nothing left to make into songs any more. Don't you see? You've +got to bring that back to him, that power to see--here." The girl's hand +pressed her heart. + +"Aye, but how?" Patsy asked it breathlessly. + +"Bring him back his memories--memories of Ireland, of the things he loved +best to sing about. You have eyes; make him see." + +A hush fell on Ward 7-A. Then Timothy Brennan muttered as a man alone: +"'Tis the words of a woman. God's blessin' on her!" + +All through the day there rang through Sheila's ears the last words Jamie +had said to her that morning. He had turned his face back, as Harrigan had +wheeled him away, to answer her "All right, Jamie?" with "As right as ever +I'll be. Do ye know, the O'Haras are famous for their long living? My +grandfather lived to be ninety-eight, and his father to be over a hundred. +That leaves me seventy-five years, maybe. Seventy-five years! And already +I'm fearin' the length of a day." She was still hearing them when she came +back to the ward at day's end to find Jamie in his old accustomed place by +the window. His face was as masklike as ever, and Larry was talking: + +"Sure, I mind often an' often how the neighbors used to tell me if I'd lie +asleep with my ear to a fairy rath I'd be hearin' their music an' seein' +their dancin'. But I never did. But I saw a sight as grand, the flight o' +the skylark at ring-o'-day. Many's the time I've seen them leave the marsh +an' go liltin' into the blue." + +"And the lilting!" Culmullen closed his eyes the better to recall it. "I +mind the last time I heard one. The sky was turned orange, and the lough +turned gold. The marsh was glistening with mist, and out of the reeds +where her nest was she flew. It was like a feathered bundle of song thrown +skyward." + +"Aye, what a song!" Johnnie, the piper, spoke with ecstasy. "Hark! I can +make it." He puckered his lips, and through them came the sweet, lilting +notes of the lark's matin song. + +"Make it again." Jamie was leaning forward in his chair, his hands +gripping the arms. + +Again the piper whistled it through, and then again and again. A smile +brushed Jamie's lips, and the others, watching, breathless, saw. + +"What is it?" asked "Granny," softly. + +"Naught. Only for the moment I was thinking I could be smelling the dew on +the bogs, yonder. Can ye pipe for the blackbirds, Johnnie?" + +And Johnnie piped. + +So a new order of things was established in Ward 7-A, and as heretofore +the lads had vied in witty derision of their calamities they vied now with +one another in telling tales of Ireland. Each marshaled forth his dearest, +greenest memory, clothed in its best, to fill the ears and heart of Jamie +O'Hara. Sometimes he smiled, and then there was a great, silent rejoicing +among the twelve; sometimes he asked for more, and then tongues tripped +over one another in mad effort to furnish forth a memory more wonderful +than all that had gone before. But more often he sat still and white, as +if he heard nothing. And in the midst of it all, as the lads drew each +day nearer to health, Sheila noted a new uneasiness among them. It was +Larry who spoke the trouble while the nurse was doing his dressings. He +whispered it, so the others should not hear. + +"By rights we don't belong here. Well, they'll be movin' us soon as we're +mended, won't they?" + +The nurse nodded. + +"Invalided home. Ye know what that means?" + +Again the nurse nodded. + +"Mind ye, there's been never a word dropped atween us, but we're all +fearin' it like--" Larry rubbed his sleeve over his mouth twice before he +went on. "While we've got Jamie to think about, we can manage, but when +he's packed off somewheres--to learn readin' an' writin' for the +blind--an' we're scattered to the four winds o' Ireland, we'll be +realizin' for the first time what we are, just. Then what are we goin' to +do? I ask ye it honest, miss." + +And honestly Sheila answered, "I don't know." + +A day later "Granny" whispered over his dressings: "Faith there's a shadow +creeping over the sill. Can't ye be feeling it?" And the color-sergeant's +spirits failed to rise that day at all. + +Yet for all their fears the inevitable day came upon them unawares and +caught them, as you might say, red-handed. Sheila had stolen a half-hour +from rest and was sitting with them, listening to Casey Ryan, the Galway +lad, tell of the fishing in Kilkieran Bay. + +Larry took the words out of his mouth. "'Twill be the proud day for us all +when we cast our eyes on Irish wather again, whether 'tis in Dublin Bay or +off the Skerries." + +"Aye, and smelling the thorn bloom and hearing the throstles sing!" +"Granny's" rejoicing followed on the heels of Larry's, while he shook his +fist at him in warning. + +Larry threw a helpless look at Jamie and sank back on his pillow, while +Patsy roared his ultimatum: "I'd a deal sight rather hear a throstle sing +than see all the bloody wather in the world. Larry's fair mad about wather +ever since he went dirty for a fortnight at Vimy." + +"Sure, the thing I'm most wantin'," croaked "Bertha," "is to hear the wind +in the heather again, deep o' the night. There isn't a sweeter sound than +that, so soft an' croony-like." + +"Yes, an' I'll be wantin' to hear the old cracked voice o' Biddy Donoghue +callin' cockles at the Antrim fair. Faith, she's worth thravelin' far to +be hearin'. An' think o' gettin' your tooth on a live cockle!" Johnnie +moistened his lips in anticipation as he broke forth in a falsetto: + + "Cockles--good cockles--here's some for your dad, + An' some for your lassie--an' more for your lad." + +Amid the appreciative chuckle of the listeners, the door of Ward 7-A +opened and the chief stood on the threshold. He smiled as a man may when +he has a hurting thing to do and grudges the doing of it. He saluted the +remnants of Company--of the Royal Irish: + +"Orders, lads. You'll be leaving to-morrow for--Blighty." + +There was nothing but silence, a silence of agony and apprehension, until +Patsy whispered, "Leavin' _together_, sir?" + +"I--hope so." + +"Thravelin'--the same?" It was Timothy Brennan this time. + +"I don't know." + +"Will we be afther makin' the same hospital yondther--do ye think?" It +took all Larry's fighting soul to keep his voice steady. + +"I--It isn't likely." + +"Thank ye, sir." + +That was all. The chief left, and Sheila sat on in the stillness of Ward +7-A, wondering wherein lay the value of theories when in the face of the +first crucial need one sat stunned and helpless. The mask of good spirits +had dropped from the lads like a camouflaged screen; behind it showed the +naked, bleeding souls of twelve terror-stricken men. For Jamie's mask was +still upon him. If the orders had brought any added misery to him, no one +could have told. + +As Sheila looked into their faces and saw all that was written there, she +gripped her hands behind her and tried to tell them what she had thought +out so clearly in the operating-room days and days before. But the message +she had thought was hers to give had somehow become meaningless. What +guarantee had she to make that their lives would go on being vital, +necessary to the big scheme of humanity? How could she promise that out +of their share in the war and the price they had paid would be wrought +something so fine, so strong and eternal, that the years ahead must needs +hold plenty for their hearts and souls? She could not get beyond the +realization that it was all only theory, the theory of one glowingly +healthy mind in a sound body. If such a promise could be given at all, it +must not come from such as she; if it was to bear faith, it must be spoken +by one who had gone through the crucible as they had gone through--and +come out even as they had come. + +She looked at Jamie. If Jamie had only had eyes to catch the meaning of +the thing she was trying to say! If he who had sung courage into their +hearts in the old days could sing it once again! A message from Jamie +would bring it home. + +But there was nothing in that blank, white face Sheila could reach. He +seemed as he had seemed from the beginning, a soul apart, so wrapped in +its own despair that no human cry of need could shake it free. In +desperation she looked at Larry. His eyes were closed; his face had gone +almost as white as Jamie's. Patsy was gazing at the ceiling; the veins on +his arms stood out as they had on that first day when he had fainted twice +from the pain of his dressing. Down the line of cots the nurse's eyes +traveled, and back again. Every lad was past speaking for another; each +lay transfixed with his own personal fear. + +The minutes seemed intolerable. The silence grew heavy with so much +muffling of despair. Sheila found herself praying that the men would +groan, cry out, curse, anything to break the ghastly hush. Then suddenly +"Bertha" propped himself as best he could on an elbow and croaked: "For +the love of Mary, miss, can't ye cram us with morphine the night? 'Twould +save the British Empire a few shillin's' expense and them at home a deal +o' misery." + +And the color-sergeant choked out, "Aye, in God's mercy send us west, +along wi' them lucky seven that has gone already!" + +Without knowing why she did it, Sheila reached over and gripped one of +Jamie's hands. "Help, can't you?" she whispered. The late afternoon sun +was shining through the window back of him. The glory of it was full on +his face, so that every lad in the ward saw plainly the smile that crept +into the lips, a tender, whimsical smile that belonged to the Jamie of +old. And the deep, vibrating voice was the voice of the Jamie of fighting +days. + +"Patsy, ye rascal! I'm thinking it was like yourself to come breaking into +the first song I've had on my lips in a month. You've nearly ruined it for +me, lad." + +Amazement, incredulity, thanksgiving swept over the faces like puffs of +wind over young wheat. Unnoticed, Sheila turned to the window and wept a +scattering of tears that could no longer be held back. Jamie pulled +himself out of the wheel-chair and found his way down the space at the +foot of the cots to the door. He was very straight, and his head was high. + +"Just a minute, lads." He dug his hands deep into his pockets. "Before I +give ye the song I've made for ye, there's something I have to be saying +first. Miss O'Leary was right when she said a man has more than one pair +of eyes to see with. He can see grand with his heart--if he's shown the +way. That's what I have to thank ye for this day, the wiping of my memory +clean of those last days, and the showing me how to see anew. Ye've given +Ireland back to me with her lark songs, her blue, dancing water, her +wind-brushed heather like a purple sea. Ye've made the world beautiful for +me again, and ye've given me the heart to sing." + +He stopped a minute and smiled again. "I was thinking all this when the +chief came in, and after that I was so busy with the song that sprang into +my mind that I came near forgetting the lot o' ye. If that rascal Patsy +hadn't interrupted me, faith, I might have made the song longer." + +Sheila turned back from the window. There was a grin on the face of every +lad, and on the face of Jamie was the look of a man who had found his +dreams again. The song being new to his tongue, he gave it slowly: + + "They say the earth's a bit shot up--well, we can say the same, + But, praise to every lad that's fought, the scars they show no shame. + And for those who have prayed for us--why, here's an end to tears. + Sure, God can do much healing in the next handful of years. + + "So, Johnnie, set your chanter and blow your pipes full strong, + And, Larry, raise your voice again and lead our marching song. + Let Mac unfurl the colors--till they sweep yon crimson west, + For we're still the Royal Irish, a-fighting with the best." + +And that is precisely the way they went when they left the American +Military Hospital No. 10 the next morning. The color-sergeant led. Jamie +walked beside the stretcher to give a hand with the staff. Johnnie sat +bolt upright, bolstered with many pillows, to enable him to get a firm +grip on the pipes, and he skirled the "Shule Aroon" as he had never +skirled before. Larry's voice again boomed in the lead, and every man in +the hospital that had breath to spare cheered them as they passed. And for +every one who saw or heard the going of the Royal Irish, that day, was +left behind a memory green enough to last till the end of time. + + + + +Chapter VIII + +INTO HER OWN + + +The last big drive was on. Somewhere on the road between what had been the +line of defense and what was the line of farthest advance rumbled a +hospital camion with its nose to the war trail like an old dog on a fresh +scent. In the camion sat Sheila O'Leary, late of the old San and later yet +of the American Military Hospital No. 10. She was in field uniform; a pair +of the chief's own boots were strapped over two pairs of woolen stockings. +She was contemplating those boots now with a smile of rare contentment +that showed its inwardness even in the gray light of early morning. + +"Never thought I should step into the shoes of a great surgeon. They ought +to pass me through to the front if everything else fails, don't you +think?" + +The chief eyed her quizzically. "They'll carry you as far as you'll care +to go and for as long as you'll stand. What's troubling me is what your +man will say when he knows?" + +"Who--Peter?" Sheila's smile deepened. "He'll understand; he'll be glad. +Something both of us will remember always, something big to share. Oh, I +know it's going to be life and death, heaven and hell, rolled into a +minute, but I wouldn't be missing this chance--" She broke off suddenly, +and when she spoke again there was a great reverence in her voice. "I feel +as the littlest angel might have felt if God had asked him to be at the +Creation." + +"Rather different, this." Griggs, the chief's assistant, spoke. There were +just the three of them in the ambulance. + +"Not so very. It's another big primal happening, the hurling together of +elemental things and impulses and watching something more solid and +lasting come out. A new heaven and a new earth." + +"What we see coming out won't be so solid or so lasting. We may not be +ourselves." Griggs was a pessimist, a heroic one, with an eye ever keen +for the grimmest and most disappointing in life and a courage to meet it +squarely. + +The chief's glance brushed him on its way to the nurse; Griggs's share of +it was plainly commiserating. "And I say, blessed be those who shall +inherit it. But, girl, this doesn't settle the question of your man. I've +had to duck orders a bit to bring you along. Women aren't wanted at the +front. He may hold it up stiff against me for it." + +"But I can help. Any woman who can stand it will be needed. They shouldn't +bar us out. That's all Peter'll think about. Don't worry." + +There was no question in the girl's mind as to the wisdom or right in her +coming--or Peter's verdict in the matter. He would not fuss over this +plunge into danger any more than he had misunderstood her giving away her +wedding back at the old San and coming over at the eleventh hour. The last +words Peter had said when he left her for the front came back with +absolute distinctness: + +"Whatever happens, do what you think best, go where you feel you must go. +Don't bungle your instincts. I'd trust them next to God's own." + +No, Peter Brooks would have been the last person to deny her this chance, +and so all was well. She was wondering now if by some rare good luck she +might stumble on Peter at the front. She had not seen him since they +separated the day after their arrival in France. A few penciled +hieroglyphics had come from time to time telling her all was well with +him. She had written when she could and when she knew enough of an address +to risk a letter reaching him. But Peter, after the manner of all +correspondents, was like Hamlet's ghost--here, there, and gone; and Sheila +had no way of knowing if her letters had ever reached him. + +For weeks it had seemed to the girl that her love had lain dormant, hushed +under the pressure of work. So vital and eternal were both love and +happiness that in her zeal for perfect, impersonal service she had thrust +them both out of sight, as one might put seeds away in the dark to wait +until planting-time, assured of their fulfilment when the time came. But +now in the lull between the work at the hospital and the work that would +soon claim her again she discovered that in some inexplicable manner love +would no longer be shut out. She was sick for the man she loved. + +A funny little wistful droop took Sheila's lips, and her chin quivered for +an instant. It was so unlike the girl that the chief, seeing, reached +across and laid a hand on her knee. + +"What is it? Not sorry?" + +"Never. But I was thinking how pleasantly easy it might have been to stay +behind at the old San. Peter and I'd be climbing that mythical hilltop of +ours, with a home of our own at the end of the climb--if we'd stayed +behind." + +"Well, why didn't you?" + +The nurse laughed softly. Griggs volunteered to answer for her. + +"Because you were a fool, like a lot of the rest of us." + +"Because--oh, because of that queer something inside us all that pries us +away from our determinations just to be contented and happy all our lives +and hustles us somewhere to do something for somebody else. Remember in +the old fairy-tales they were always cleaning the world of dragons or +giants or chimeras before they married and lived happy ever after." + +"Bosh! Remember that it's only in the fairy-tales that the giants or the +monsters don't generally get you, and you get an epitaph instead of a +wedding. You romantic idealists make me sick," and Griggs snarled openly. + +Their mobile unit was held up that day in a little ruined city. Only one +other dressing-station was there, and the wounded were passing through so +fast and so wounded that many could not go on. So they set up another +dressing-station and worked through the night until the stars went out and +their orders came to hurry on. They caught two hours' sleep and by noon of +another day they were as close to the front as a hospital unit could go. + +A dugout had been portioned out to them, and while orderlies brought in +their equipment and the surgeons were coupling up lights and sterilizer, +Sheila started to get a hot meal in two sterilizing basins. The nurse was +just drawing in her first breath of real war. Before she had time to +exhale it a despatch-bearer climbed down into the dugout and handed an +order to the chief. It was from headquarters, and brief. The division did +not intend to have any woman's name on its casualty list. Sheila was to +be returned at once. The bearer added the information that an ambulance +was returning with wounded; she could take it. + +The chief had never seen the nurse turn so white. Her eyes spoke the +appeal her lips refused to make. He tried to put something into words to +make it easier for her, but gave it up in final despair. What was there to +say? In silence the girl put on her trench coat, jammed on her hat, and +was gone. For the first kilometer her senses were too numbed to allow for +much thinking. Mechanically she passed her canteen to one of the wounded, +readjusted a blanket over another. It was not until the division turned +loose its first barrage that day that she woke up to what was happening to +her. She was going back; she was not going to have her chance. + +The noise was terrific. It drowned everything but the mutinous hammerings +of her own heart. In the flash of an eye she changed from the Sheila +O'Leary of civilized production to a savage, primitive woman. She had but +one dominating instinct, to stand by the male of her tribe, to succor +him, fight with him, die with him. It seemed as futile a thing to try to +stay this impulse as to try to put out the burning of a prairie when the +wind blows. + +The ambulance stopped with a jerk. Something was wrong with the engine. +The driver climbed down and threw back the hood, and, unnoticed, the nurse +slipped down and passed him. When he had finished his tinkering, Sheila +was fifty rods away across the meadow. + +"Here, you, you come back!" shouted the driver. + +For answer Sheila doubled her speed. + +The driver watched her, uncertain what to do. A shell whizzed from beyond +the barrage and burst a hundred yards from the nurse. The shock threw her, +but she was up in an instant, her course changed toward some deserted +trenches. The driver hesitated no longer. He climbed back and started the +engine. + +"No use tacklin' them kind," he remarked to the empty seat beside him. +"She'll get there or she won't--but she won't turn back." + +It was nightfall when Sheila came up with what she had chosen to call "her +division." She intended to possess it in spite of the commander. An +outpost sentry challenged what he thought a wraith. His tongue fumbled the +words, "Oh, Gawd! it's a woman!" + +"Yes. Will you pass her? Lots to do." + +He looked at the red cross on her arm and smiled foolishly. "You bet there +is! Sure I'll pass you." + +She came up with the first battalion, bivouacked under a shell-riven +ridge. + +"A woman!" The first boy whispered it, and the exclamation rippled on to +the next and the next like wind in dry leaves. Remembering the exodus of +the morning, the nurse knew if she was to stay she must prove her need and +prove it quickly. Her voice was as business-like as in the old San days. + +"Dressing-station? Company's surgeon? Wounded? Doesn't matter which, only +get me some work." + +A hand slipped out of the darkness and caught her elbow. "This way, lady," +and she was drawn along the protecting shelter of the ridge. After rods of +stumbling she stumbled down irrational stairs into the same dugout she had +left that morning. She was almost as surprised as the two surgeons. + +"You're a fool," muttered Griggs. "Wait till they order me back. I'll not +be crying for purgatory twice." + +The chief smiled. "I reckon you got that S O S call I've been sending out +all day. We need help like sixty. Bichloride's under that basin. We'll be +ready for you when you've washed up. Night ahead--" His words trailed off +into an incoherent chuckling. He was wondering how the girl had managed +it. He was wondering more what the command would do when it found out. In +the mean time he was glorying in her courage; he would see she got full +measure of the work that had claimed her in spite of orders, while he +silently thanked a merciful God for providing her. + +No one questioned her right to be there that night. Wounded poured in, +flooded the dugout to capacity, were cared for, carried away, and more +flooded again. It was daybreak before a lull came, and then there were +orders to be ready to follow the battalion in an hour. So they ate a +snatch, packed, and rolled on in the wake of the Allies' conquest. + +Again it was nightfall before they caught up with their regiment. Even to +eyes as inexperienced as theirs it was easy to see it had been factored +and factored again, and not the half of it was standing. They found a +couple of regimental surgeons floundering through a sea of wounded. The +nurse had to bite her lips to keep back the cry of horror over the +apparent hopelessness of the task that lay before them. So many--and so +few hands to do it all! + +A shout went up from the men who had come through whole, when they saw +her. They were wet, covered with mud, aching in every joint and sinew, but +they forgot it all in their joyful pride over the fact that the nurse was +standing by. + +"Gosh durn it, it's our girl!" + +"Stuck fast to the old bat. Whoopee!" + +"At-a-boy! Three cheers for the pluckiest girl on the front--our girl!" +and a young giant led the cheering that sprang as one yell from those +husky throats. + +"She's all right--our girl's all right--'rah-'rah-'rah!" + +Sheila's own voice was too husky to more than whisper, as she slipped +behind the giant, "Tell them my thanks and--good luck." + +"You bet I will." + +From that instant there was no more helplessness in the feelings of Sheila +O'Leary. She felt empowered to move mountains, to make new a mangled heap +of boys. As she joined the chief she stopped to see how it was with him. +His eyes met hers, and in the flash she read there the same fighting faith +that was in her own heart. He patted her shoulder. + +"Didn't think you'd funk. Nothing like team-work when you're up against +it. Keeps you believing in the divinity of man, eh?" + +And who can tell if at times like these the power of the Nazarene does not +pass on to those who go fearlessly forth to minister in the face of death! +It would not be so strange if he had passed over innumerable battle-fields +and so anointed those who had come to succor that their task was made +easier and their burden at least bearable. + +There was no shelter for any of them that night. They worked in the open, +and volunteers came from the ranks to do what they could. The surgeons +would have scorned them, but the nurse mustered in a score or more to keep +the fires under the kettles burning, to hold supplies and lanterns, to +make coffee when the sterilizing basins could be surrendered for the +purpose; and she showed those with pocket-knives how to cut away the +blood-soaked clothing. Caked with mud herself and desperately hungry, she +dressed and comforted as she went. The scene was ghastly--Verestchagin +might have painted it--but Sheila saw none of it. It was for her a time +exalted, even for those she helped to die. There was no sting in this +death. As she passed on and on in the darkness the space about her seemed +filled with the shadowy forms of those whom God was mustering out, +peacefully, gloriously waiting His command to march into a land of full +promise. So acutely did she feel this that a prayer rose to her lips and +stayed there, mute, half through the night, that some time she might be +given the chance to make this clear for those who mourned at home, to make +them feel that death, here, held no sting. + +In the midst of it Sheila felt a heavy hand laid on her arm, and turned to +look into the face of the commander. + +"Are you the nurse I ordered back two days ago?" + +"I believe so." + +"Who ordered you back again?" + +"No one." + +"How did you come?" + +The girl laughed softly. She could not resist the memory of that flight. +"Engine went wrong and I--beat it. Don't blame the driver; he did his best +to obey orders. I joined the division last night and came on with my +chief." + +"So there's no use in ordering you back?" + +"None in the least--that is, not so long as the boys are coming in like +this." + +"How long can you stand it?" + +"As long as they can, sir." And then without rhyme or reason tears sprang +into the nurse's eyes, to her great mortification and terror. That would +probably finish her; a woman who cried had no place at the front, and the +general would dismiss her promptly and with scorn. + +But he did not. The hand that had touched her arm reached out and gripped +her hand. She caught a whimsical smile brushing his lips in the dark. + +"Good night. When you want your discharge, I'll sign it." + +He went as swiftly and silently as he had come. The nurse turned back to +her work with a sigh of relief. The regiment was hers officially now. + +The next day they made another little town. So quickly and unexpectedly +had the enemy been forced to evacuate it that there had been no time to +destroy or pillage, and the shells had somehow passed it by. The town was +full of liberated French--the young and very old--who crowded the streets +and shouted their welcome as the troops passed through. The chapel was +flung open to receive the wounded, and the hospital unit was installed +therein. + +As Sheila O'Leary crossed the threshold of the little church a strange +feeling sprang at her, so that her throat went dry and her heart almost +stopped beating. It was as if something apart from her and yet not apart +had spoken and said: "Here is where the big moment of your life will be +staged. Whatever matters for all time will happen here, and what has gone +before--the San, the hospital, everything you have felt, striven for, +believed in, and trusted--all that is but a prologue. The real part of +your life is just beginning--or--" + +Griggs broke the terror that was clutching at her. "What's the matter? +Don't you know there's a war going on and about a million wounded coming +in? There are a few hundred of them up there, lying round under the images +of the saints. The saints may bless 'em, but they won't dress 'em. The +chief's growling for you. Come along!" + +For once she was grateful to the pessimist. She tried to brush the +strangeness away as she hurried down the aisle, but it clung in spite of +her. And at the altar more strangeness confronted her. A slightly wounded +lad suddenly reached out a hand holding a crumpled paper. + +"Guess you're Miss O'Leary, ain't you? He said there wasn't much of a +chance, but what you don't expect over here is what you get. You know?" + +The incoherency was lost on Sheila. She took the crumpled paper +wonderingly and found it covered with Peter's scribbled hieroglyphics: + + BELOVED: + + The boys have been telling me about you--to think you're really with + us and standing by! It may bring its dole of horror--bound to--we all + have our turn at it. If it comes, hold to your courage and take deep + hold of that wonder-soul of yours; that will steady you. And + remember, there is peace coming, and home--yours and mine. Close your + eyes when the sights get too bad, and you'll see that blessed house + of ours on the hilltop you've chosen; you'll see the little lamp + shining us good cheer. Think of that. I'm with the other wing now, + but any day I may be shifted to yours. Until then, + + Yours, + + "P. B." + +The nurse thrust the paper into the front of her uniform, shook the hand +that had brought it to her, and passed up the steps to the work that was +waiting for her. The first day passed like a dream. Guns boomed, shells +screeched their way overhead and landed somewhere. Wounded came and went. +Many died, and a white-haired, tottering old sexton helped to carry them +away. The old palsied _abbe_ came and chanted prayers for the dying, and +some one played a "_Dies Irae_" on the little organ. Old French mothers +stole in timorously and offered their services, the service of their hands +and emptied hearts. When they found they might help they were pathetically +grateful, fluttering down between the aisles of wounded like souls with a +day's reprieve from purgatory. They were finding panacea for their +bereavement in this care of the sons of other mothers. And as they passed +Sheila, in broken sentences, almost inarticulate, they told their sorrow: + +"Six--all gone, ma'm'selle." + +"Jean, Francois, Paul, and Victor--Victor the last--he fell two months +ago." + +"Four sons and four daughters--a rich legacy from my dead husband, +ma'm'selle. And I have paid it back--soul by soul--all--he has them all +now." + +So they mourned as they went their way of tender service, the words +dropping unconsciously from their quivering old lips. A few there were who +stood apart, the envied mothers with hope. Sheila learned who they were +almost from the beginning. Each had a son somewhere not reported. Old +Madame d'Arcy whispered about it as she bathed the face of the boy who +looked so much like her own. + +"Of course, ma'm'selle, my Lucien may be--I have not heard from him in +many months. It is not for me to hope too much. But I think--yes, I think, +ma'm'selle, he will come home to me when the war is over." + +And Madame Simone, who brought fresh black coffee and little cakes for +those who could eat them, trembled with the gladness of ministering to the +boys who were fighting with hers for France. "I had almost ceased to pray +when the Americans came, but now--ah, ma'm'selle, now there is hope again +in this withered breast. I even dream now of mon p'tit--the youngest of +them all. I feel the good God is sparing him for me." + +And old Isabelle, who came to scrub the floor and clean, muttered, as she +bent her willing back to the labor: "Moi, that is what I say, too. The +Lord will send my Jacques home to comfort my old age." + +As Sheila listened, it epitomized for her the tragedy of the mothers of +France, this antiphonal chorus of the mothers who had lost all and those +who had yet one son left. To the girl's mind there came in almost cruel +contrast that chorus of Maeterlinck's mothers raised in rapturous +expectancy to the unborn; she knew she was hearing now the agonized +antithesis of it. Throughout the first day it rang incessantly, until she +could have hummed the haunting melody of it. Then night came. The patches +of reds and greens and blues that had sifted through the stained-glass +window in the chancel and played all day in grotesque patches on the white +cheeks of the wounded faded alike to gray, and the nurse lit the tall wax +candles on the altar that the work might go on without stopping. + +The next day--and the next--passed much the same. There was no end to the +wounded. Griggs fainted twice the second day, and the chief and Sheila +carried the work alone for a few hours. Each of them was acutely conscious +of the strain on the other and did what he and she could to ease the +tension. For the girl her greatest comfort was in the scrap of paper +crumpled over her breast. It told her Peter was near, coming to her soon. +It seemed to transmit some of his strength and optimism. There were +moments when, but for his reassurance, the girl would have doubted every +normal, happy phase of life and acknowledged only the unending torture and +renunciation. Sometimes the horror seemed to wrap them in like an +impenetrable fog. As for the chief, it took every ounce of will and sanity +to keep him going, and he wondered how the girl beside him could brave it +through without a whimper. + +Always about them roared the great guns like the last booming of a +judgment day, and under that noise the moaning chorus of the French +mothers. When the strain reached the breaking-point Sheila closed her eyes +and looked for the light on the hilltop that Peter had promised would be +there--and there it always was. Moreover, she could feel Peter's vital +presence and the marvelous reality of his love reaching nearer and nearer +to her through the darkness. So she kept her head clear and her hands +steady and forced a smile whenever the chief eyed her anxiously. She never +failed a boy "going west." To the last breath she let him see the +radiating faith of her own soul that believed in the ultimate Love above +everything else. Those old illuminating smiles that had won for her her +nickname of Leerie never had to be forced, and they lighted the way out +for many a groping soul in that little church. And the old Frenchwomen, +watching above their prayers for the return of Louis or Charles or +Jacques, said: + +"See, for all she's so young, she knows what the mother-heart is. That is +why she feels for us. She knows how our hearts have bled." + +On the 9th of November they were still there. The division had continued +its drive, but slowly, and no orders had come for the mobile unit to go +forward. And then came one of those lulls and flush-backs which for the +moment made one almost believe that the tide of battle had turned +again--and for the enemy. With the coming of the first wounded that day +came orders to evacuate the town at once. + +At first the townsfolk would not believe, but as the muddy columns of the +first company could be seen on the outskirts, doubt gave place to +certainty, and without moan they gathered up what few belongings they +could and set their faces toward what they prayed would hold French soil. +Before the refugees had cleared the town, the shelling began, giving the +last impelling haste to their exodus. The hospital unit stayed in the +church. They got the wounded ready to be moved and waited for further +orders. They came in another ten minutes; everybody was to clear out. +Three ambulances from the east and a half-dozen from the west gathered up +the stretcher cases, while the others piled into the supply-trucks--that +is, all but the chief and Sheila. They stood in the church door with +minds for anything but going. It came to them both that, as the battalions +fell back, each would be bringing its wounded as far as it could. If there +was a place to drop them--and care waiting until a few more ambulances +could push through--many lives might be saved, and much suffering. + +The chief looked down at the girl and saw what was in her mind. Linking +his arm in hers, he muttered under his breath, "Still game, bless you!" +And then aloud: "Miss O'Leary and I have a liking for this place. We'll +stay until the next orders." + +Griggs had climbed to the footboard of an ambulance, and he faced them +with contempt. "We didn't volunteer to sit 'round and be blown to bits. +Don't be fools, you two. Come on while you've got a chance." And then, +when he saw how futile were his words: "If you haven't had enough +slaughter for one while, I have. Good-by." + +As they waved them off, the muddy column of the first company swung down +the street. It was even as they had thought--wounded were with them, and +the nurse and surgeon hurried inside to make ready. The day wound itself +out in an almost ludicrous repetition of events. Straggling companies fell +back, dropped their wounded, and went on; a few ambulances made the town, +gathered up the worst cases, and went back. Desultory shells picked off +their belfry, smashed a group of monuments in the cemetery, and wiped out +a street of houses not far away. And every half-hour or so came the orders +to evacuate at once. Regiment after regiment fell back through the city; +the rest of the division must have passed to north and south of it. By +nightfall nearly all had passed and the town was left like a delta between +two dividing currents. + +"They'll begin shelling in earnest by midnight. We'll get barrages from +both sides. We won't know it, but this town's going to be wiped off the +map to-night." The chief said it in his most matter-of-fact voice, but his +face showed gray. + +The girl hushed him. "The boys might hear, and they've been through so +much. There's no harm in letting them hope." She turned back to the +emergency kettle she was stirring. They were making cocoa and feeding the +boys out of the chalice-cups from the altar. To the nurse it seemed like +passing the last communion, and though her hands kept steady, her heart +seemed drained. + +Out of the noise and the gathering gloom outside came two more +stretcher-loads. The bearers whistled when they saw the red cross on the +door. They whistled harder when they pushed it open and looked inside. +"Gee! we thought all you outfits had been ordered back!" The bearers laid +down their burden on a pew, and the fore one groaned out the words. + +"We were," the chief spoke. "Sorry we didn't go?" + +"Dunno. Bet these chaps wouldn't be, though--if they knew. Don't know +whether it's any use trying; they're all but gone, Doc." The speaker +jerked his head over his shoulder and thumbed a command to the other +bearers. "Here you, Jake! You and Fritzie hustle along with yours." + +As the surgeon bent over to examine, the nurse stopped an instant to +listen, then went on feeding her boys. + +"This one's French." The chief was looking over the first stretcher. "How +did you pick him up?" + +"Got mixed up with a company of _poilus_ in the last scrap. We fought all +together." + +"Hmmmm! He'll need speed or he'll make it. Give me a hand with him, boys, +over to the table there." + +"Wait, Doc. There's another just as bad. He's--the other's a Yank." + +The spokesman again jerked his comrades into further evidence. One of the +bearers was an American, the other a captured German, slightly wounded. +Between them lay a figure in the gray uniform of a correspondent. A heavy +growth of beard made the man almost unrecognizable, but something tugged +at the chief's memory and set him speculating. He cast a furtive glance +over his shoulder toward the nurse, then lowered his voice. + +"You haven't any idea who it is, have you?" + +"Sure. He's the A. P. man that's been with our division from the first. +His name's Brooks." + +The chalice fell through Sheila's fingers and struck the altar steps with +a sharp, metallic ring. The next instant she was beside the chief, looking +down with wide, unbelieving eyes at the stretcher which held nothing +familiar but the gray uniform--and there were many men wearing the same. +It could not be. This was not the way Peter was coming back to her. In all +the days of horror, of caring for the hundreds of wounded, it had never +entered her mind that war might claim the man she loved. Her love, and the +fulfilment thereof, had stood out as the one absolute reality of life, the +thing that could not fail. This simply could not be; Peter was still far +away, but coming, supreme in his strength, invulnerable in his love and +promise to her. + +"You--don't know him?" The chief asked it hopefully. + +The girl shook her head. "He can't be--The beard--Wait." Her hand slipped +through the opening in his uniform to an inside pocket. She drew out a +flat bundle of papers, and the first glance told her all she needed to +know. There was Peter's unmistakable scribbling on the uppermost, and from +under it showed the corner of one of her letters to him. + +The chief's hand steadied her. "No time to lose, girl, but we'll pull him +through. We've got to fight for it, but we'll do it. Easy there, boys. +Take him over to the table, there, under the light." + +But Sheila O'Leary put out a detaining hand. Her eyes were no longer on +Peter; she was looking at the figure on the other stretcher. "What did you +say about that French boy?" + +"He'll have to go, poor chap! There isn't time for both. Listen, Leerie," +as a flash of pain swept the girl's face, "it's a toss-up between them +who's worse, and it's down now to a matter of minutes. It means the best +team-work we've done yet to save just your man." + +Still the girl made no move. Her eyes were turned away. In her ears was +ringing the chorus of the mothers, those waiting for Louis or Jacques or +Lucien to come home. Dear God, what was she to do? + +The chief pulled her sleeve. "Wake up, girl. There's a chance for your +man, I tell you, only in Heaven's name don't waste it! Come." + +She tried to take her eyes away from the boy, tried to shut her ears to +the cry that was ringing in them. She wanted to look at Peter and say the +word that would start the bearers carrying him to that little zone of +light about the altar where they had saved so many during those days. But +her eyes clung, in spite of her, to the white boy-face and the faded blue +uniform below it. Peter had no mother, no one but herself to face the +grief and mourn the loss of him, and the hearts of French mothers had been +drained--bled almost to the last drop? Wouldn't Peter say to save that +drop? Had she the right to shed it and spare her own heart's bleeding? The +questions filtered through her mind with the inevitableness of sands in an +hour-glass. With a cry of agony she wrenched her eyes away at last and +faced the chief. + +"We'll let Peter--wait. We'll take the boy--first." + +Dumfounded, the chief stared for the fraction of a moment; then he shook +her. "For God's sake, wake up, Leerie! You've gone through so much, your +thinking isn't just clear. Get rational, girl. You'd be deliberately +killing your man, to leave him now. You don't realize his condition, or +you wouldn't be wasting time this way. By the time we finish with the +first there'll be no chance for the second; they're both bleeding in a +dozen places. Here, boys! Help me over with Mr. Brooks." + +But Sheila put out a quick hand and held them back. "And if I put Peter +first I shall be deliberately killing the other. Don't you see? I can't do +it--Peter wouldn't wish it--it would mean--Boys, carry over the other. The +chief's going to save a lad for France." + +There was no denying her. She stood guard over Peter's stretcher until the +other had been lifted and carried away. Grimly the surgeon followed, and +Sheila turned to the two who were still holding the stretcher. + +"Would you mind putting him down there? Now, will you leave us just a +minute?" She spoke to the American, but the German must have understood, +for he led the way to the church door and stood with his back to her. + +Even the comfort of staying with Peter to the last was denied her. The +chief had said it must be team-work, the best. She mustn't waste many +seconds. She thought of the many she had helped to die, the courage a warm +grip of the hand had given, the healing strength in a smile, and her +heart cringed before this last sacrifice of giving Peter over to a +desolate, prayerless death. Hardly breathing, she slipped down and laid +her cheek to his bearded one. She could offer one prayer, that he need +never wake to know. Kneeling there, his last words came back to her almost +in mockery: + +"Don't bungle your instincts. I'd trust them next to God's own." + +Dear God, if she only could bungle them! If only they had not wrenched +from her this torturing, ghastly choice! She knew the meaning now of the +strangeness that had met her as she first crossed the threshold of the +little church. She knew why the chorus of mothers had been sung so deep +into her heart. The greatest moment of her life had come--a terrible, +soul-rending moment. And beyond it lay nothing. She choked out an +incoherent, futile prayer into the dulled ears--and left him. This--this +was her farewell to Peter Brooks--her man--her man for all time. + +The American orderly had disappeared. Sheila stumbled over to the door and +gripped the sleeve of the German. + +"If he opens his eyes"--she opened and shut her own eyes in +pantomime--"come for me, quick. Verstehen?" + +The German nodded. + +For the next half-hour, with nerves keyed to their utmost and hands +working with the greatest speed and skill they were capable of, Sheila +O'Leary's soul went down into purgatory and stayed there. Not once did she +look beyond the boy she was helping to save; not once did she let herself +think what might be happening beyond the circle of light that hemmed them +in. With all the woman courage she could muster, she was stifling every +breath of love or longing--or self-pity. If she could have killed her body +and known that when that night's work was done she would be laid in the +cemetery outside with Peter, she would have been almost satisfied. + +Suddenly she realized they had finished. The chief was repeating something +over and over again. + +"The boy is safe. You'd better lie down." + +The bearers were moving the boy back to the pews and the chief was leading +her down the steps of the chancel. But it was Sheila who guided their +steps at the bottom. She led the way toward the German and the thing he +had been asked to watch. Terror shook her. It seemed as if she could never +look at what she knew would be waiting for her, and yet no power on earth +could have held her back. + +As she reached the prisoner she saw in bewilderment a strange scattering +of things on the floor about him--forceps, some knives, a roll of gauze, +and a syringe. There was an odor of a strange antiseptic which made her +faint. She tottered and would have fallen had the German not helped the +chief to steady her. + +"He has not gained consciousness, madam. He has lost too much blood for +that." The German spoke in English. He also spread his hands in mute +apology for what he had done. "I have stanched his wounds with what poor +supplies I had with me. It has merely kept him alive. He will require more +care, better dressing." + +No one answered. Words seemed the most impossible and absurd means of +expression just then. + +The German smiled at the look Sheila gave him, and the smile was arrogant. +"You Americans have always made such a fuss over what you have been +pleased to call our brutalities. What is war if it isn't a consistent +effort to exterminate the enemy? The women are the wives of the enemy and +the breeders of more; the wounded are still the enemy--if they recover, +they fight again. But a German knows how to honor a brave act. And when +you go back, madam, you can tell how Carl Tiefmann, a German surgeon, +wounded and taken prisoner, so far forgot his Prussian creed as to spare +an enemy for a brave woman." + +He bowed and went back to the church doors. Sheila watched him go through +a trailing of mist; then she dropped through the chief's arms, +unconscious, on the floor beside Peter's stretcher. + +The Germans never reached the little town, and by some merciful stroke of +luck neither did any more of the shells. So it came to pass that on the +11th of November a very white nurse, holding fast to the hand of a man +unconscious on a stretcher, followed Peace across the threshold of the +American Military Hospital No. 10. It was days before Sheila spoke above a +husky whisper or smiled, for it was days before Peter was out of +danger, but there came a morning at last when a shaven and shorn Peter, +looking oddly familiar, opened clear, sane eyes and saw the woman he loved +bending close above him. + + +[Illustration: "He will require more care, better dressing"] + + +He gave the same old cry that he had given ages before when he had come +out of another nightmare of unconsciousness and fear, "It's Leerie--why, +it's Leerie!" + +And Sheila smiled down at him again with the old luminous smile. + +When he was sufficiently mended to look about him and take reckoning of +what had happened, he asked first for the ring that he had bought for that +long-before wedding and that he had carried ever since with him. And he +asked, second, for the chaplain. + +Sheila drew the gold chain from about her neck and dangled the ring in +front of his nose. "I took it when we cut off your coat that night, and +I've kept it handy ever since. The chaplain's handy, too. He's +promised--any hour of the day or night. Shall we send for him--now?" + +Peter nodded. + +The nurse turned to go, hesitated, and then came back to the cot. Peter +thought he had never seen her eyes so full of wonder. + +"Man o' mine, maybe you won't want me when you know I almost let you go, +that I intended to let you die to save first a French lad that came in +with you." + +Peter grinned. "Same old Leerie! Well, we're quits, sweetheart, and I'm +glad to have it off my conscience. Sort of did the same thing myself. +Rushed off in the shelling to bring in that same poor chap--he'd got a +bullet in his leg--and all the time I knew I ought to be thinking of you +first and hanging on to safety. Funny, isn't it, how something queer gets +you in the midst of it all and you do the last thing in the world you want +to do? A year or two and the whole thing will be unexplainable." + +Sheila bent over and laid her lips to Peter's. She knew that in a year--in +a century--they would still understand why they had done these things, and +she was glad they had both paid their utmost for the love and happiness +that she knew was theirs now for all time. + +Peter broke on her reverie with a chuckle. "Remember old Hennessy saying +once that he believed you would give me away with everything else--if you +thought anybody else needed me more? He'd certainly wash his hands of the +pair of us." + +"Hennessy's an old dear. I'll get the chaplain, and afterward let's send +Hennessy the first--and the best--cable he's ever had. Sort of owe it to +him, don't we?" + +Without any of the original splendor of decorations, collation, and +attire, with no one but the chaplain to marry them and the chief to bless +them, Sheila O'Leary came into her own at last. As for Peter--he looked as +Hennessy described him on the day the Brookses came home--"wi' one eye on +the thruest lass God ever made an' the other on Paradise." + + + + +AFTERWORD + + +I thought I had to have a better ending to the story than the scraps of +things I had made over from Leerie's letters and what Peter had told me. +So I went to Hennessy. + +It was midwinter. I found him cracking the ice on the pond to let the +swans in for a cold bath. + +"'Tis not docthor's ordthers," he grinned by way of explanation; "but they +get so blitherin' uneasy there's no housin' them. That's the why I give +them a bit of a cold nip onct the while--sure 'tis good threatment for us +all--an' then they settle down." + +I huddled deeper into a fur coat and tried to agree with Hennessy. + +"Did ye see Leerie, then, since she came home?" + +"Have you?" + +He shirred his lips into an ecstatic pucker and whistled triumphantly. +"Wasn't I always sayin' she'd marry the finest gentleman in the land, same +as the King o' Ireland's only daughter, and go dandtherin' off to a fine +home of her own?" + +"And she has." + +"She has that." + +"And so the story's told, Hennessy." + +"Told nothin'. Sure, it isn't half told--it isn't more than half begun, +just." + +"But you can't end a book that way. You have to end with an ending." + +"'Tis the best way to end a book, then. Haven't ye taken the lass over the +worst o' the road an' aren't ye leavin' her with the best ahead?" + +"But what is there left--to find along the way? She's found her +work--that's over with. She's found her man--that's over with. She's found +love--that's over--" + +Hennessy interrupted me almost viciously. I think he wanted to prod me +instead of the ice. "What kind of talkin' is that for a person who thries +to write books about real folk? Ye harken to me. Do ye think because love +is found 'tis over with? Sure, Leerie's only caught a whiff of it +yet--'tis naught but budded for her. By an' by there come the blossom of +it an' the fruit of it. An' when death maybe withers it for a +spell--'twill be but a winther-time promise to bud an' blossom again in +the Counthry Beyond. There's no witherin' to love like hers. An' do ye +think because she has her man found there's no pretty fancy or adventure +still waitin' them along the way? An' do ye think Leerie's work will ever +be done? Tell me that!" + +The shirr tightened into something like contempt. Hennessy looked down +upon me with undisguised pity. + +"Did ye ever know Leerie at all, at all, I'm wondtherin'--to be savin' +things like that? Don't ye know for the likes o' her there'll be +childher--Saint Anthony send them a nestful!" He crossed himself to +further the wish. "An' over an' above the time it takes tendin' an' lovin' +them an' rearin' them into the finest parcel o' youngsters God ever +made--wi' the help o' their parents--there'll be time left to light the +way for every poor, sorry soul within a hundred miles o' her. Ye can take +my word for it; an' if she never did another stroke o' work so long as she +lived--bein' Leerie, just, would be enough." + +"You may be right, Hennessy, but it's still no way to end a book." + +He came a step nearer and shook a warning finger at me. "Will ye listen? +Faith, I'm wondtherin' sometimes that folk read your books when ye have so +little sense wi' the endin' o' them. Don't ye know that a book that ends +wi' the end is a dead book entirely? An' who cares to be readin' a dead +book? Tell me that." + +His contempt changed to commiseration. I might have been Brian Boru, the +gray swan, the way he looked at me. + +"The right way of endin' is with a beginnin'--the beginnin' o' something +bigger an' betther an' sweeter. 'Tis like ye were takin' a friend with ye +up a high hill--showin' him all the pretty things along the way. Then just +afore ye get to the top--an' afore ye can look over an' see what's waitin' +beyond--ye leave him, sayin', 'Go ye alone an' find whatever ye are most +wishin' for.'" + +He stopped, pushed his hat back and pulled his forelock as if for more +inspiration. "Do ye see? Just be leavin' it to folk the world over. They +can read in a betther endin' than ye can be writin' in in a hundthred +years. An' let Leerie be as I'm tellin' ye--wi' the road windin' over the +hill an' out o' sight. Sure the two of us know what she'll be findin' +there; an' do ye think the readers have less sense than what we have?" + + +THE END + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Leerie, by Ruth Sawyer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEERIE *** + +***** This file should be named 32959.txt or 32959.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/9/5/32959/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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